Chinese scientists knew the genetic makeup of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, two weeks before it shared this information with the rest of the world, according to a new report.
This delay, according to a Wednesday press statement from the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, cost the world vital time to prepare, likely worsening the virus's impact and death toll, which as of December 31 exceeded 7 million.
Soon after taking office in 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the virus, including a connection with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Biosafety level 4 lab in the Hubei Province city where China's outbreak appeared to start. Last year, Biden signed a bill into law that required government entities to declassify and share intelligence on this potential link.
Wednesday's revelation suggests the Chinese authorities had mapped the virus's genome a full two weeks before they published it and three before they publicly confirmed human-to-human transmission.
Documents published by the Energy and Commerce Committee showed that the viral sequence in the possession of a Beijing-based scientist was almost identical to the one later disseminated by the Chinese government.
Beijing had said it made the virus's genetic sequence public as soon as it was decoded.
The earlier sequence was submitted to the National Institutes of Health's genetic sequence data database GenBank by virologist Lili Ren, a researcher at the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Science—an institution with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
However, the NIH on December 31, 2019, informed Ren her submission lacked certain required technical information and would be deleted if this data was not provided.
"Complete feature annotation has not been included for some or all of the sequences you have submitted," the redacted letter provided to the committee by the NIH said, among other documents.
The Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed Ren's genome was identical to the one shared by the Chinese Center for Disease Control on January 11, 2020, according to the press release.
Newsweek reached out to the NIH and White House with written requests for comment.
"This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called 'facts' or data provided by the CCP and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information," said the committee press release.
The committee members said the White House, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the NIH had blocked their inquiry into the origins of the virus.
The Biden administration "obstructed and delayed Congressional investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, refused to produce this sequence for over seven months, and only released it to the [Energy and Commerce] Committee after the committee threatened to subpoena the sequence," the statement said.
"HHS has consistently and voluntarily provided Congress with thousands of pages of documents, as well as the expertise of officials, as part of its effort to promote transparency and understanding on the origins of COVID-19," an HHS spokesperson told Newsweek on Thursday.
The spokesperson said the department agrees that "valuable, bipartisan work remains to address the Chinese government's lack of transparency," and that it gives investigators access to information on COVID's origin in order to stave off other pandemics.
Attached to the committee press release was their letter to Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, dated September 28, 2023.
The letter threatened to issue the subpoena after months without a sign the NIH was cooperating with the committee's request for documents related to early SARS-CoV-2 sequences, data from early COVID cases, and other related information.
Update 01/18/24 12:13 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
Update 01/18/24 10:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from an HHS spokesperson.
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About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
