The Wuhan Cover-Up
Ideological distortions and misinformation in the post-modern age
In my January 12, 2024, commentary, I discussed the recent book by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race.1 Kennedy shows that major U.S. funding agencies have been funding Chinese and American researchers conducting change-of-function research, a controversial type of research that deliberately manipulates viruses to increase their transmissibility and severity. Kennedy acknowledges that the Chinese researchers and their American colleagues and sponsors say that they are conducting the research under controlled laboratory conditions in order to advance scientific understanding of the evolution of infectious viruses, so that pandemics and endemics can be prevented or controlled, and strategies can be developed to nullify or contain possible bioterrorist attacks. Kennedy dismisses such explanations as nothing more than pretexts to hide the development of bioweapons. I pointed out in the January 12 commentary that Kennedy presents no evidence that the funded research projects have been actually conducting bioweapons development, and he does not present evidence for the actual existence of biological arms laboratories. He conflates the real and the possible, constantly referring to change-of-function viral research as bioweapons research. He convokes the fear of a “terrifying bioweapons arms race,” without presenting any evidence of actually existing bioweapons laboratories in China or anywhere.
“RFK Jr. and the bioweapons arms race: A new book by the independent presidential candidate does not persuade,” January 12, 2024
In my January 12 commentary, I also exposed Kennedy’s distortions of the texts written by the scientists in question in their grant proposals. I juxtaposed Kennedy’s citations of the scientists with the full texts from which the quotes were taken. Whereas Kennedy implied through his text selections that the scientists were proposing to potential funders the development of biological arms, the complete texts show that the researchers were maintaining that the proposed research would be valuable for developing countermeasures of protection against biological weapons.
In my subsequent commentary of January 19, I review the Joint WHO-China Study report on the origins of COVID-19. Kennedy rejects the findings of said Study, maintaining that there was a Cover-Up of the actual origins of COVID-19. In Kennedy’s view, the source of the pandemic was an accidental infection of one or more of the workers in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is one of the main laboratories in the world for gain-of-function SARS research. I considered it useful in the context of Kennedy’s charges to understand what the Joint WHO-China Study report said, and its reasons.
Dr. Shi and coworker working with protective covering
As I noted in the January 19 commentary, the WHO-China report maintained that it is likely to very likely that the virus originated in bats and was transmitted via an unknown intermediate host species to humans in late December 2019 in the Huanan food and animal market in Wuhan, China. However, inasmuch as the Joint WHO-China team was not able to isolate and identify a progenitor virus, and therefore was unable to identify an intermediate host species, it did not completely eliminate other possibilities. Among these possibilities was a laboratory incident, which the study considered very unlikely, in part because of high-quality management of the lab; and in part because the international team conducted blood tests on the lab workers, and no evidence of previous COVID-19 infection was found. In addition, Shi Zhengli, Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, had reported that immediately following the outbreak, her research team sequenced the new virus in Wuhan, and it found that the sequencing did not match the coronaviruses in her lab.
“WHO and the origins of COVID-19: Science and cooperation for the common good of humanity,” January 19, 2024.
In my January 19 commentary, I maintain that the Joint WHO-China team analyzed the question from a scientific perspective, rooted in previous scientific studies of pandemic origins. I noted that the formation of an international scientific team with such a mission was possible, as a result of the development for decades of international agencies of the UN System, such as WHO, which enjoy the confidence even of nations that are constructing socialism and are critical of the structures of the world-economy. But due to political and ideological divisions in the world, it would not be possible to establish a similar international team that would proceed from an international consensus to address the possible origin of COVID-19, asking questions related to political-economy and/or military-security. These are the kinds of questions that Kennedy asks, but he addresses them from a particular political viewpoint, with premises that are rejected from the anti-imperialist perspective of the global South.
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan, China
In today’s commentary, I review certain claims that Kennedy makes with respect to the timing of the outbreak, which Kennedy bases on a report of the Republican minority staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. RFK Jr. reports that the Republican congressional investigation of August 2021 “concluded that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab ‘sometime before September 12, 2019’ and that Chinese officials knew that a SARS-like respiratory pneumonia was afoot in Wuhan and were already trying to control both the virus and the narrative by that date.”
Why do Kennedy and the Republican staff believe that the virus began on September 12, 2019? Upon examining the Republican minority report,2 we see that the report notes that on September 12, 2019, the online public database of virus samples and sequences of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was taken offline. And in addition, the report explains that satellite images of Wuhan show that in September or October there was considerable increase in traffic volume in five or six hospitals in downtown Wuhan.
However, these speculations based on indirect evidence do not stand up in light of the facts discovered by the international team. The Joint WHO-China Study reports that it clinically analyzed 76,253 cases of respiratory conditions in October and November in 233 Health Institutions in Wuhan. It found 92 of these cases to be compatible with the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Subsequent testing of these 92 cases determined that none was in fact due to SARS-CoV-2. The team therefore concluded that it is unlikely that any substantial transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was occurring in Wuhan during these months of October and November.
Taking into account the satellite observation of traffic reported by the Republican minority staff, and the 76,253 cases of respiratory conditions reported by the international team, it can be concluded that something was going on in October and November, but it was not COVID-19. Moreover, whatever was going on was not lethal, inasmuch as the mortality studies of the Joint WHO-China Study showed no increase in mortality until the third week of January, consistent with widespread infection in early January and an outbreak in late December.
With respect to the taking down of the public database on September 12, the director of the Wuhan lab declared in a BBC interview that the data was taken offline for security reasons in the aftermath of a cyberattack. Now that empirical investigation by an international team has shown that the traffic movement at that time turned out to be smoke with respect to COVID-19, the taking down of the data no longer appears suspicious, especially since it was simply stored in a more secure location. Does anyone think it doubtful that a viral research lab in China could be cyberattacked? Perhaps the sources of the cyberattack ought to be investigated as part of a comprehensive investigation that includes the possibility that China was the victim of a bioterrorist attack.
The January 20, 2020, published report of the Chinese researchers and the August 2021 Joint WHO-China Study arrive to essentially the same conclusion, supported by empirical evidence. The COVID-19 outbreak was in late December, with the first case in mid-December, and with rapid expansion in January. Epidemiological investigations show that slightly more than half of the initially infected persons had been in a food and animal market in Wuhan, consistent with previous studies of “spillover” from animal species to humans; and that most of these contacts occurred in the Huanan market.
According to the Republican minority report, the Chinese researchers “were aware for days or perhaps weeks that the virus was spreading via human-to-human contact and did not alert the world.” This claim is valid only if you think that traffic patterns observed by satellite have more relevance than clinical, epidemiological, and mortality studies and testing carried out by an international team of specialists on the scene in Wuhan, which concluded that the outbreak occurred in late December. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was on the scene on January 1, seeking to contain and investigating possible sources.
The Republican report in its chronology of events writes that on December 30 “doctors in Wuhan report positive tests for ‘SARS Coronavirus’ to local health officials. Under the 2005 International Health Regulations, the PRC is required to report these results to the WHO in twenty-four hours. They do not.” In fact, WHO and the entire world were alerted on December 30. The Website of GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data) shows that the virus with the name hCoV-19/Wuhan/WIV04/23019 was submitted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences on 30 December 2019. The GISAID Website states: “The GISAID platform was launched on the occasion of the Sixty-first World Health Assembly in May 2008. . . . Since its launch GISAID plays an essential role in the sharing of data among the WHO Collaborating Centers and National Influenza Centers for the bi-annual influenza vaccine virus recommendations by the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.”
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Further considerations
One wonders if the Republicans are trying to generate momentum for a particular theory that can no longer be proven or disproven, with the intention of having it out there as a permanent part of the discourse and the negative propaganda about China. This approach was proven to be effective in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and it now is being replayed for the New Cold War against China. Even though the American people today have greater maturity with respect to discerning Cold War propaganda distortions, we are disadvantaged by the widespread acceptance of post-modern epistemological assumptions, in which it is assumed that truth does not exist, and therefore all actors have the right to influence on the basis of politically motivated manipulation of empirical evidence.
The Report’s recommendations to the Congress indicate the New Cold War mentality of its authors. The Committee Minority Staff recommends that the U.S. Congress:
Sanction the Chinese Academy of Sciences and affiliated entities.
List the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its leadership on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. . . .
Review all H-2B visas of Chinese nationals engaged in biological, chemical, or related research in the United States for possible revocation.
Review all student visas of Chinese nationals studying in U.S. academic institutions for possible revocation.
In addition, the Staff encourages foreign governments that have made bilateral contracts with China under the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative to examine bilateral agreement terms, especially joint scientific and academic research agreements that give China access to unique natural resources in their nations.
These recommendations go beyond ensuring that an accidental leak, if it had occurred, never happens again; and they go beyond sanctioning the few individuals that would have been involved in a supposed cover-up. They are the kinds of strategies that the U.S. government today employs in its unconventional war against targeted nations in the pursuit of its imperialist objectives.
Furthermore, the staff recommends that Congress authorize and fund a public-private partnership for pandemic prevention, warning, and early detection. This recommendation, in the absence of structures that facilitate oversight of government agencies by delegates of the people, is sure to result in a partnership between government and private capital that guarantees enormous corporate profits.
It should be a surprise to no one that the Republican Party once again stands for aggressive imperialism and profits for the wealthy. What is disappointing is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in bed with them, instead of seeking to build those structures of cooperation among nations that would ensure a more peaceful world.
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Kennedy, Robert F., Jr. 2023. The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
The Origins of COVID-19: An Investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Technology. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Report Minority Staff. Lead Republican Michael T. McCaul. August 2021.