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‘This is the Chernobyl of Biology’ Sun documentary exposes Wuhan ‘lab leak’ behind Covid… and US’s shock role in it
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 America helped to cover up the scandal.
Watch the documentary in full on our YouTube channel here
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.
‘Aggressively silenced’
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 corona- virus.
Dr Redfield, 73, a former US army officer, also tells The Sun of the moment President Donald Trump begged China’s president to be allowed to send a team into the country to help, only to be “ignored”.
He said the fact Covid was “ready-made” for human transmission immediately rang alarm bells.
Our documentary also probes links between a British-born businessman and American funding into bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute.
Zoologist Peter Daszak, an expert in how diseases jump from animals to humans, ran a virus-hunting group called the EcoHealth Alliance, which was given millions of taxpayer dollars through the US Department of Defence.
In May 2018, the company — which claims it is “dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from the emergence of disease” — put in a grant proposal for research that would have manipulated a virus strikingly similar to the one behind Covid-19.
Dr Redfield said: “They proposed to change this virus, and lo and behold — that is the virus that comes out.
“If you know much about grants and scientists. most of us don’t apply for grants that we don’t have data to know it’s going to work.
“I’d say it’s highly likely they’d already done the experiments before they even submitted for the grant.”
Watergate was nothing compared to this. This is the Chernobyl of biology
In January this year, EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak were banned from any federal funding for five years for using American money to carry out experiments in Wuhan.
EcoHealth Alliance has categorically denied any claims of wrong- doing and said their research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could not have started the pandemic.
By Britain’s second lockdown in November 2020, many dismissed the lab leak as a conspiracy theory, but in America and China, the idea was fast gaining pace.
Even scientists who produced a paper, known as Proximal Origins, had their suspicions.
Their hugely influential research rejected the idea of a lab accident but behind closed doors one of the authors, Kristian Andersen, said it was “so friggin’ likely”.
Email messages, obtained by investigative journalist Emily Kopp, show that another report author, Eddie Holmes, said Covid “seemed to have been pre-adapted for human spread since the get-go”.
In China, where 180million people were locked down, those who tried to get to the truth were threatened with their lives.
Whistleblower Dr Li-Meng Yan, who worked for the WHO in Hong Kong, told me she fled the country in fear after investigating the virus sweeping Wuhan.
Congress report confirms what we suspected
By Imogen Braddick, Assistant Foreign Editor
Finally, politicians have said what many scientists and journalists have been saying for years – that Covid did leak from a dodgy lab in Wuhan.
But how has it taken five years to say what many people suspected within weeks of China admitting there was a new virus on the loose?
In a bombshell move, Congress accused governments and members of the scientific community of trying to cover-up facts about the origins of the pandemic.
And the report is an acknowledgement that the lab leak theory is not a conspiracy – after years of shaming anyone who dare question the “consensus”.
It’s a step in the right direction in the fight for justice for the millions of people who lost loved ones in the pandemic.
Many will continue to question why finding the origins of the pandemic is important.
It’s important for the families of millions who died. It’s also important if we want to stop the next pandemic.
If Covid did leak from a lab, we must have more oversight over risky lab research. If it was a natural spillover event, we must take steps to try and prevent a similar disaster.
The Congress report is a welcome victory – but it’s taken far too long for a government to take the lead on the probe into the origins.
Here, the UK government is rightly examining the response to the pandemic with the Covid-19 Inquiry.
But it should also pay more attention to where the virus came from if we want to stop another pandemic killing millions more.
There’s still much more evidence to be found, clues to be uncovered and scientists to quiz.
She said her boss told her to keep her probe “secret”.
But, when she was told by friends that China knew what Covid was and had the sequence to unlock the virus, she went public on YouTube.
She explained: “I was told to do it [investigate] secretly and not to cross the red line — to keep quiet or I would ‘disappear’.”
Federal investigator David Asher, a former US State Department official, said the probe into the origins of Covid was the “biggest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor”.
‘Reckless abandon’
He compared the deadly outbreak to the Watergate scandal, which took down President Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
“This is the Chernobyl of biology,” he said, accusing US scientists of helping orchestrate an “outrageous” cover-up and “whitewashing” the lab theory.
David believes Chinese dictator Jinping engineered Covid to “control the world order, spark chaos and sow seeds of uncertainty.”
He points out that China had already stated at a world conference in 2011 that it was looking at creating biological weapons.
He said: “At the time, when I talked to people who were there, they were like, ‘It was shocking’.
“It was almost like China was dropping the death card, like Apocalypse Now — ‘If you mess with us, this is what could happen to you’.
“I don’t think Covid was released as a weapon, or they would have released it, say, outside the Pentagon.
“But could it have been a laboratory accident involving programmes they were running with reckless abandon? Absolutely.”
Could it have been a laboratory accident involving programmes they were running with reckless abandon? Absolutely
Federal investigator David Asher, a former US State Department official
David is calling for a 9/11 style commission to get to the bottom of the pandemic’s cause, and claims the classified intelligence on its origins “would make your head explode”.
As the world grappled with the virus in April 2020 when 33,000 had already died in the UK, President Trump stood at a podium and uttered the words “lab leak”.
At the time, America’s top doctor, Anthony Fauci immediately shut down the theory but, five years on, so many questions remain unanswered.
Today, Dr Shi Zhengli, the Chinese scientist at the heart of the debate, is planning “ominous” new bat experiments.
Wuhan researchers have found a new bat coronavirus that can enter human cells — and it shares features with Covid-19.
Zhengli, whose team has collected more than 2,000 samples from bat colonies over two decades, now wants to tamper with it.
In a paper published in Nature, she also boasted that her institute had built the first “customised” coronavirus “receptors”.
These form the building blocks to change viruses to infect different species, says Redfield, who in January called the work “potentially catastrophic”.
Zhengli’s research might read like gobbledegook to most of us, but if the life-changing pandemic really did come from the Wuhan lab, we must ask how long until humanity faces the same fate again?
Beloved sandwich shop suddenly closes just 3 months after opening city venue as owner issues chilling warning
OWNERS of a beloved sandwich shop have revealed the devastating reason they’re closing the store just three months after it opened.
Despite the restaurant’s sister site being incredibly popular, locals spotted “To Let” signs in the new venue’s windows.
Urban Bites in Norwich has announced its shock closure on March 1, much to the bafflement of residents.
The highly anticipated takeaway venue only opened on December 18 last year and was met with a warm welcome to shoppers in Norwich Lanes.
Unfortunately for owners Mr Scammell Jordy Walters, footfall was simply not high enough, forcing the pair to shut up shop after just three months.
They had invested a whopping £30,000 into the business but after a lack of customers they were left with no other option.
Mr Scammel said: “Unfortunately things didn’t work out like we wanted to, so in the end we had to pull the plug at the site.
“There just wasn’t enough footfall coming through the door to justify staying open any longer.
“We told staff on the last day of trading that we were shutting.”
The venue, opposite Turtle Bay in Swan Lane, served up mouth-watering hog roast sandwiches, artisan coffee, and a range of breakfast foods.
Urban Bites was originally based in North Walsham but the owners decided to open a second restaurant due to its positive reception.
In the short time it was open the takeaway received a five-star rating on Google, albeit by only three reviews.
In an announcement stating its arrival in December, locals appeared enthusiastic about the new venue.
One happy customer shared: “Great food and reasonable value- deffo one to try if in the city.”
Another gushed: “Great food and fabulous inside, the music the the music to the video is pretty chilled to.
“Their sister takeaway in North Walsham is banging.”
A third excited diner queried: “Hog roast sandwiches did you say?”
While the restaurant didn’t last as long as many had hoped, the North Walsham venue is still open for business and selling its iconic baps.
On social media, the remaining store posted: “Bringing a variety of different foods to the town of North Walsham.”
Urban Bites isn’t the only restaurant to have been hit by hard times of late.
Hundreds of venues have been affected by an array of financial burdens in the past few years.
Consumers have also been forced to stop spending as much.
The pandemic, looming tax spikes, and the cost of living crisis have all led to fewer Brits splashing the cash.
Without as much disposable income, fewer customers pour money into hospitality making it difficult to sustain.
It was revealed that six pubs were shut every week last year as they were hit by rising business costs.
What is happening to the hospitality industry?
By Laura McGuire, consumer reporter
MANY Food and drink chains have been struggling in recently as the cost of living has led to fewer people spending on eating out.
Businesses had been struggling to bounce back after the pandemic, only to be hit with soaring energy bills and inflation.
Multiple chains have been affected, resulting in big-name brands like Wetherspoons and Frankie & Benny’s closing branches.
Some chains have not survived, Byron Burger fell into administration last year, with owners saying it would result in the loss of over 200 jobs.
Pizza giant, Papa Johns is shutting down 43 of its stores soon.
Tasty, the owner of Wildwood, said it will shut sites as part of major restructuring plans.
Trump to fly in person to Saudi Arabia to get Ukraine deal ‘back on track’ as he says Putin easier to deal than Zelensky
DONALD Trump is expected to fly to Saudi Arabia in person to meet the Ukrainians and get the peace deal “back on track”.
Speaking from the Oval Office today, the president said that it is getting “more difficult” to deal with Kyiv but said he thinks he will “get it settled and stopped”.
Trump also said that Russia “bombing the hell” out of Ukraine – and that Putin is doing what “anyone else would do”.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
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