US spies concluded that Covid could have leaked from a lab just three months into the pandemic, new documents reveal.
The US Defense Department’s intelligence agency believed the virus could have been engineered in a lab in Wuhan, China – and caused the pandemic that has killed seven million people so far.
A security guard keeps watch outside Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the WHO team in 2021[/caption]
Dr Shi Zhengli – dubbed ‘Batwoman’ for her research on bat coronaviruses – at the Wuhan Institute of Virology[/caption]
Scientists at the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the Wuhan Institute of Virology was highly skilled at genetic manipulation, according to analysis obtained by US Right to Know.
And they said the unique make-up of Covid was “consistent with the hypothesis” that it was “a lab-engineered virus” that “escaped”.
The 46-page presentation – dated June 25, 2020 and marked “secret” – concluded that the virus could have come from “a large bank” of bat coronaviruses at the US-funded Wuhan lab.
For years, Shi Zhengli – the lead scientist at the Wuhan lab dubbed “Batwoman” – manipulated viruses to make them more infectious in humans, experts claim.
Her lab has been at the centre of the storm since Covid emerged just miles from the facility.
Just weeks before Covid emerged, their “bank” of more than 20,000 viruses was mysteriously taken offline.
Many believe it could hold key clues about the origins.
So far, the CIA, FBI and the US Department of Energy have all backed a lab leak as the most likely explanation – with many pointing the finger at the Wuhan lab.
The Sun also revealed how military chiefs were repeatedly told that Covid was a lab leak at the start of the pandemic.
But the new document from the Defense Intelligence Agency is the most detailed analysis released to the public so far that explains the evidence behind the theory.
James Phillips, former Special Adviser to the Prime Minister between April 2020 and September 2022, said: “This is precisely the conclusion our team came to at the time, but in direct contradiction to the position the UK science establishment strongly took.”
Biosafety expert Dr Richard Ebright claimed: “All informed parties and persons – without exception – have known for five years.
“This includes those who lied to the public for five years.”
Scientist Steve Massey told US Right to Know that the documents are “highly significant”.
He said it shows that “a strong scientific basis supporting a potential lab leak was identified early on”.
The analysis also pointed out that researchers at the Wuhan lab were carrying out experiments at biosafety levels “which would make an accidental release” of an infectious bat coronavirus “more likely”.
They also noted “Chinese labs have had a history of virus escapes”.
The docs were disclosed through a FOI request for assessments from scientists Robert Greg Cutlip, Jean-Paul Chretien, and John Hardham.
The trio had conducted work for the National Center for Medical Intelligence – which is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Great Covid Cover-up
By Imogen Braddick, Assistant Foreign Editor
FEW of us had heard of the Chinese city of Wuhan when the world was first paralysed by Covid-19 five years ago.
Today, the sprawling metropolis is synonymous with the pandemic that claimed 227,000 lives in the UK — along with its sinister labs where top secret biological experiments are carried out.
Within the first few days of Britain’s initial lockdown in March 2020, as millions were confined to their homes, questions were already being asked about whether Wuhan’s Institute of Virology could be behind the outbreak.
Now, as the country marks the five-year anniversary of Covid-19, an exclusive documentary by The Sun reveals the experts, scientists and investigators who not only believe the virus was caused by a lab leak, but that American scientists helped to cover up the scandal.
Our documentary took me to the heart of the origins of Covid and explores whether China was trying to cover up the creation of a biological weapon by blaming the pandemic on a wet food market 17 miles away.
We also reveal that, while scientists publicly insisted the disease came from “natural” sources, behind the scenes they were exchanging messages about a laboratory leak.
One expert told us: “Watergate was nothing compared to this.
“This is the Chernobyl of biology.”
Dr Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that a few months before the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute was taken over by the Chinese military while officials deleted its databases and took on a contract for a new ventilation system.
We now know that three lab researchers fell ill in November 2019 — a month before the first Covid cases were reported to the World Health Organisation.
“I think that’s when the pandemic started,” said Dr Redfield, describing a “frenzied cover-up that was keeping Chinese President Xi Jinping up at night”.
The US virologist says he was “aggressively silenced” when he voiced fears Covid had leaked from the lab, where “Batwoman” scientist Shi Zhengli was carrying out experiments on strains of coronavirus.
In August 2023, The Australian reported that scientists from four intel agencies agreed with Chretien and Cutlip’s views.
Yet government officials kept the findings out of the public eye.
It comes after The Sun’s documentary The Covid Files: Inside the Wuhan lab-leak scandal lifted the lid on the early days of the pandemic in 2020 that killed millions.
We spoke the experts, scientists and investigators who not only believe the virus was caused by a lab leak – but that American scientists helped to cover up the scandal.
Scientists have repeatedly said that Covid was “exquisitely matched”, “completely pre-adapted” and “supercharged” for humans.
And in January, we revealed that Dr Zhengli is still doing “risky” virus experiments.
Robert Redfield, the director of America’s CDC during the pandemic, said the experiments have “potentially catastrophic consequences”.
In a paper published in Nature, Shi and a team of scientists boasted they had built the first “customised” coronavirus “receptors”.
In other words, Shi is creating the building blocks to change viruses so that they can infect different species – including humans, Mr Redfield said.
He said: “Take bird flu – you can modify the receptor so that instead of chickens and turkeys, it can infect humans.
“It’s potentially dangerous research. You are taking a non-pathogenic virus and changing it so that it could end up being dangerous to humans.
“You may have a pathogen that is restricted to pigs – but now you could totally change it so that it’s highly infectious to other species too.
“She’s playing around with bat viruses and modifying their receptor – so now they’ll infect cows or chickens, for example. It’s ill-advised.
“There’s potential catastrophic consequences. It could cause a new pandemic in animals or humans.”
The research will make growing viruses in human cells easier as they have created “customised” receptors for viruses.
It means viruses can be more easily adapted to humans, experts said.
Dr Alina Chan, a genetic engineering expert, told The Sun: “It looks like they have a new suite of engineered host cells to isolate more novel coronaviruses.
“There’s some potential here for risky work to happen downstream.”
Dr Chan, who co-authored Viral on the origins of the pandemic, added: “In other words, once you have all these novel viruses growing in the lab, what do you do with them?”
Many pieces of the puzzle on the pandemic are yet to be found – and after five years of searching, no natural origin has been discovered.
In the early days of the pandemic, Shi sequenced the virus and a critical role in the story of Covid[/caption]
