The 328-page report relies heavily on previously unreported Chinese-language sources.
Covid-19 most likely originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), according to a report released Wednesday by the office of Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.).
The chronological 328-page report, which relies heavily on previously unreported Chinese-language sources, contributes significant circumstantial evidence to support the lab-leak theory. The product of months of investigation by the senator’s staff, the report examines the history of the Chinese Communist Party’s bioweapons research history dating back decades as well as the party’s behavior leading up to and in the wake of the outbreak.
The report suggests that in 218 Beijing began placing “intense political pressure” on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other biological research facilities to “produce technological breakthroughs” with military applications.
Part of that effort involved pushing scientists to transition away from using key equipment sourced from foreign competitors, even as those scientists began to warn of significant safety concerns, according to the report.
“A careful reading of reports from the WIV spanning more than a three-year period yielded a picture of a struggling institution: underfunded, under-regulated, and understaffed. WIV leadership complained that some portion of their overworked staff 6 was also poorly trained, while some reports revealed a work culture of laxity toward safety matters and described difficulties adapting to the work environment at their newly constructed facilities,” the report states. “Persistent problems popped up month after month in report after report, casting considerable doubt on the WIV’s claims of successful remedy.”
The CCP’s response to the outbreak also suggests that it understood the scale of the likely damage well before it went public about the true nature of the virus and was eager to mislead the public about the virus’s likely origins.
“Awareness of a laboratory incident seemed to have shaped the CCP leadership’s response to SARS-CoV-2: a response characterized by strict controls of information, obfuscation, misdirection, punishment of whistleblowers, and the destruction of key clinical evidence,” the report states.
“Even when Beijing shared information with the international community – such as the initial notice of a pneumonia outbreak, the later admission that a novel coronavirus was its causal agent, and the publishing of its genomic sequence – it did so belatedly. In all three cases, Beijing possessed the relevant information for some time before sharing it, and disclosed it only when compelled to do so by circumstances beyond its control.”
While outwardly withholding, the report says China was at work cleaning up its lab procedures and protocol adherence.
“Just as Beijing was dismissing the lab leak theory of the origin of COVID-19 in international settings, internally, Beijing was warning its officials that the risk of laboratory-acquired infections with SARS-CoV-2 was significant, and ordering regulatory reforms to be implemented immediately to improve laboratory biosafety conditions,” the report reads.
Rubio’s investigation is one of a growing number of reports from inside and outside of government that find the lab-leak theory to be not only plausible but the most likely explanation for Covid-19’s origins. The FBI and the Department of Energy have reported medium and low confidence, respectively, in the theory, and skeptics, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, cited political pressures as the primary reason for their public doubts.