Official timeline
December 8, 2019 – Earliest date China recognized an infection
December 31st – China first reported ‘pneumonia of unknown cause’ to World Health Organization
January 1, 2020 – Wuhan seafood market closed for disinfection
January 7 – President Xi Jinping discusses coronavirus outbreak with his political office
January 9 – China releases coronavirus genome
January 11 – China reported its first death
January 13 – The first case outside China is confirmed
January 20 – China’s National Health Commission confirms human-to-human transmission
January 23 – Wuhan locked down
January 31 – WHO declared an ‘epidemic of international concern’ as China admitted to having thousands of cases
February 23 – Italy reports a cluster of cases in the West’s first major outbreak
May 29 – China says virus didn’t originate in wet markets but in Chinese bats before it spread to humans via ‘intermediate animal’
July 31 – Chinese researcher admits some coronavirus experiments conducted in inferior biosafety labs
December 16 – WHO announces it will travel to Wuhan to probe origins of virus in January
January 5, 2021 – China denies entry to WHO investigative team
February 9 – WHO rejects theory virus leaked from lab – backs China’s claim it was imported from frozen meat
March 28 – Former US national security officials say Intel shows “there was a direct order from Beijing to destroy all virus samples” at the Wuhan lab
New evidence
2012: Six miners with a mysterious flu-like illness in Mojiang Cave in Yunnan.
They were found to have been infected with Covid’s closest known relative, sharing 97% of its genes.
RATG13 samples are sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for study.
September 2019– Blood samples are taken from a lung cancer screening trial in Italy which later tests positive for coronavirus
Oct – Whistleblower Wei Jingsheng claims China deliberately spread Covid at the World Military Games in Wuhan in October, two months before the rest of the world knew about the virus
Oct – Xi Jinping’s authoritarian regime has desperately tried to silence whistleblowers like Mr. Jingsheng. All references made on social media to a new virus or SARS ‘outbreak’ have been censored
Oct-Dec – Increase in cases of “flu and pneumonia” in northern Italy that could be linked to the coronavirus
Nov – Whistleblower Mr Jingsheng says he raised concerns about the military games with senior Trump administration officials but was ignored
Nov – An intelligence report passed to Washington agencies claims that three staff members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital treatment in November 2019 after experiencing symptoms consistent with Covid
Nov – Sewage samples taken from Florianópolis, Brazil, suggest the virus was present
November 10 – A Milanese woman undergoes a skin biopsy, producing a sample that later shows signs of the virus
November 17 – Leaked documents suggest a case was detected in China on this date
Dec – Doctors in China, including Li Wenliang, report the existence of a new type of respiratory infection. But Chinese police arrested him and eight of his colleagues for questioning – instead of releasing the reports and warning the public
1st December – Chinese researchers report infection on this date in a peer-reviewed study, but this has not been acknowledged by Beijing
December 18 – Wastewater samples taken in Milan and Turin suggest the virus was circulating in the cities
December 26 – Samples analyzed suggested a new type of SARS was circulating as early as December 26, but Wuhan was not locked down until January 22
January 2020 – Barcelona sewage samples suggest the virus was in the city
January 3 – Covid-19 infections are starting to spread in other countries, including the United States, as the WHO calls the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern
May – Scientists at a government lab in California have concluded that Covid-19 may have escaped from a facility in Wuhan
July – WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China failed to share vital raw data during its investigation in Wuhan. China has rejected these claims
June 2021: Top US virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci has been warned that Covid may have been engineered in a lab, leaked emails reveal.
August: The world’s first Covid-19 patient may have been infected by a bat while working for a lab in Wuhan, China, says WHO chief Dr Peter Embarek
August: A damning report from Republicans in the US claims the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, shortly after the facility tried to improve air safety and waste handling systems
The report also cited “abundant evidence” that lab scientists were working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans and such manipulation could be hidden.
October: Examination of US intelligence on the origins of the pandemic cannot determine whether the virus emerged through animal-to-human transmission or a laboratory leak.
Chinese officials called the report “political and false”.
January 2022: Leaked emails from British scientist Sir Jeremy Farrar showed he admitted in February 2020 to a ‘likely explanation’ that the virus could be man-made. But he later called the theory a “conspiracy”.
February: Sir Farrar is called to be interviewed under oath in the US Congress. Officials want him to explain why he backed away from the lab leak theory.
