House Republicans said Thursday that the genetic sequence for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was isolated and mapped by researchers in China in late December 2019, two weeks before Beijing revealed the existence of the deadly virus to global public health authorities.
The revelation does not settle the debate on whether the virus originated from nature or was the result of a laboratory accident. It adds to suspicions, though, that China’s government knew more details about the virus in the earlier stages of the pandemic than it has let on.
“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 House Energy and Commerce Committee chairwoman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), subcommittee on health chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and subcommittee on oversight and investigations chairman Morgan Griffith (R-VA).
The legislators, whose committee released the documents, said the new information proves the need for improved oversight of grant research funding and biosecurity practices.
The documents obtained by the committee from the Department of Health and Human Services indicate that the genetic sequence for SARS-CoV-2 was submitted to the National Institutes of Health database by Dr. Lili Ren.
Ren is a virologist at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of Chinese Academy of Medical Science, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.
Ren is also a recipient of funds given to the nonprofit research firm EcoHealth Alliance on a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Records indicate that Ren submitted the initial sequence for SARS-CoV-2 to GenBank, the NIH’s database, on Dec. 28, 2019. On Dec. 31, Ren was notified by NIH staff that she was missing technical information required for publication, and her submission was eventually deleted.
HHS withheld the sequencing information from the committee for seven months, only releasing the documents after threats of subpoena.
The Energy and Commerce Committee press release said that the process for “monitoring GenBank submissions is insufficient as the United States had an early SARS-CoV-2 sequence in our possession and apparently had no idea.”
HHS told the committee that Ren’s Dec. 28 sequence was “nearly identical” to the sequence made public by the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 10, 2020.
