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By Charlie McCarthy From newsmax

Chinese researchers identified the virus that causes COVID-19 at least two weeks before Beijing informed the world of the deadly disease, according to congressional investigators.

Researchers isolated and mapped coronavirus in late December 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

However, China did not share the virus’ sequence with the World Health Organization until Jan. 11, 2020, according to U.S. government timelines.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) obtained documents, reviewed by the Journal, that show a Beijing-based researcher uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the virus’ structure to a U.S. government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019.

The documents explaining a new timeline were obtained by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee after the panel threatened to subpoena HHS.

Experts say the extra two weeks could have been crucial in helping the international medical community deal with COVID — pinpointing how it spread, developing medical defenses, and seeking a vaccine, the Journal reported.

The report raises questions about what the Chinese communists knew during the early days of the pandemic. The documents didn’t specify whether COVID emerged from an infected animal or a lab leak, but they indicate there’s still much to learn about the pandemic’s origin.

Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, reviewed the documents and the recently discovered gene sequence.

“[The report] underscores how cautious we have to be about the accuracy of the information that the Chinese government has released,” Bloom told the Journal. “It’s important to keep in mind how little we know.”

In June, the Substack newsletter “Public” reported that the first people infected by the virus included researchers who led the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses.

In late 2019 and early 2020, Chinese officials publicly described the disease outbreak as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause.” Beijing did not close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, site of one of the initial COVID outbreaks, until January 2020.

Dr. Lili Ren, of the Beijing-based Institute of Pathogen Biology (IPB), was the Chinese researcher who submitted the virus sequence. IPB is part of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

“China has kept refining our COVID response based on science to make it more targeted,” a Chinese Embassy spokesperson said, the Journal reported. “China’s COVID response policies are science-based, effective, and consistent with China’s national realities. They can stand the test of history.”

It was reported Tuesday that Chinese scientists affiliated with the military have engineered a lethal mutant coronavirus strainwith a 100% mortality rate in mice, igniting concerns over the potential transmission to humans.

Charlie McCarthy | [email protected]

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

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