Since at least 2017, China’s People’s Liberation Army has been engaged in virology research with potential military applications at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), according to an investigative report published this week in the Times of London. And according to the secret Chinese communications intercepted by U.S. investigators that inform the Times report, this “covert project of dangerous experiments” being conducted at the infamous lab was likely a direct predicate for the global outbreak of Covid-19.
The report indicates that some of the first patients to be sickened with the virus that disrupted life across the planet and cost the lives of millions were scientists researching the disease at the WIV. Those scientists were reportedly engaged in gain-of-function experiments, in which pathogens are genetically altered to increase the risks associated with infection in an effort to better understand how to mitigate those risks. And when the researchers — relatively young and healthy adults — became so sick with a flu-like illness in the fall of 2019 that they required hospitalization, Chinese officials did not appear to be confused about the nature of the problem on their hands.
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