A former Trump administration official says it’s “certainly possible” that the Chinese government killed a Wuhan scientist who may have started the COVID-19 pandemic while secretly working on a vaccine a few years ago. months before the global health crisis broke out.
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In 2019, Chinese military scientist Zhou Yusen was actively conducting research on live animals at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said Dr. Robert Kadlec, who worked as assistant secretary for the Biodefense and Response Departments. to epidemics during the pandemic.
AFP
The Wuhan Institute is considered by some American officials as a possible point of origin of the pandemic. In June, however, American intelligence assured in a report that it had no evidence indicating that COVID-19 had been created in a laboratory in China, without deciding on the origin of the pandemic.
AFP
Dr. Yusen filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in February 2020.
Less than a month later, China placed Wuhan on lockdown as the spread of the respiratory virus was out of control.
AFP
Three months later, Dr. Yusen died after falling from the roof of the Wuhan Institute.
“It appears he was censored as a result of what happened,” Mr Kadlec told Australian broadcaster Sky News.
“Our evidence suggests something happened while he was working, which we believe is when the virus first emerged. Whether he was held responsible in a formal proceeding or not, he was certainly dead by July [2020]”, he added.
AFP
Asked if he thought it was possible that Yusen was killed for starting the pandemic, Mr Kadlec said: “It’s certainly possible, we considered that as a plausible possibility, but we we had no evidence to make this assessment.”
The speed with which Dr. Yusen developed a COVID-19 vaccine raised concerns that the Wuhan institute was secretly working on a vaccine, several months before Beijing admitted to the emergence of this vaccine. new virus, reports the New York Post.
AFP
American vaccine developers have told government investigators that it would have taken at least three months to produce the data cited in Dr. Yusen’s patent, suggesting that he was working on this vaccine at least two months before Chinese authorities do not announce the appearance of the new virus.
House Republicans concluded in a report released in April that this research may have led to an accidental lab leak.