According to research by a cybersecurity firm, the Chinese province that was the first hub of the COVID-19 epidemic made significant purchases of equipment needed to test for infectious diseases months before Beijing notified international authorities of the appearance of a new virus.
According to the Australian-American firm Internet 2.0, the province's purchase of PCR testing equipment, which allows scientists to amplify DNA samples to test for infectious disease or other genetic material, increased significantly in 2019, with the majority of the increase occurring in the second half of the year.
Wuhan, a prominent Chinese city where the first cases of COVID-19 were discovered, is located in Hubei province. On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization's China Country Office received notification that instances of pneumonia from an unknown origin had been discovered in the city.
On January 7, 2020, Chinese authorities identified a new strain of coronavirus, dubbed SARS-CoV-2, as the cause of the disease now known as COVID-19. The virus has since spread to almost every country on the planet. Over 230 million individuals have been infected, with nearly 4.8 million dying as a result.
According to the article, Internet 2.0 concluded with "high confidence" that the epidemic started "much earlier than China informed the WHO about COVID-19." Further investigation is needed, according to the cybersecurity group, which specializes in digital forensics and intelligence analysis.
Several medical specialists have expressed concern that the Internet 2.0 report lacks sufficient data to draw such conclusions. For one reason, according to one of the experts, PCR testing, which has been in widespread use for decades, has grown in popularity as it has become a standard means of testing for infections.
Furthermore, PCR technology is often found in modern hospitals and labs and is widely used in laboratories to test for many other diseases besides COVID-19, including in animals. In 2019, China was also battling an outbreak of African swine fever that spread throughout the country.
China's Foreign Ministry has contested the conclusions. A spokesperson for the coronavirus said they belong in the same category as other dubious claims about the virus's origins, such as a "so-called paper" that analyzed traffic volumes near several hospitals in Wuhan and searched for the keywords "cough" and "diarrhea" before concluding that the outbreak started in Wuhan as early as August 2019.
According to Beijing's spokeswoman, "virus traceability is a serious scientific issue that should be addressed by scientists." According to the spokesperson, China's State Council Information Office produced a white paper on the country's efforts to battle COVID-19, which includes "a clear timeline and iron-clad facts" that record the country's attempts to tackle the epidemic.
The spokesperson emphasized that "China's anti-epidemic campaign is open to the world, the situation is clear, the facts are clear at a glance, and stand the test of time and history."
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said he couldn't explain why purchases in Hubei province had risen at that time. However, he added it wasn't surprising because, even before COVID-19, purchases of PCR equipment had been increasing. After all, it had become "the methodology of choice for pathogen detection."
Adalja, whose research focuses on emerging infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness, believes the data is insufficient to sway the debate over the epidemic's origins. He stated, "I don't think it adds anything positive or negative." "It is insufficient."
According to an Australian scientist who received the study, more data was needed to explain the procurement statistics and asked anonymity because he wasn't permitted to talk publicly on the subject. The biochemist, who has solid experience in immunology, PCR applications, and associated studies, said the data indicated a sudden, considerable need for pathogen diagnostic equipment. Still, it merely raised issues about what the equipment was used to test.
The timing of some of the contracts and the agencies behind the purchases lend credence to the idea that officials in Hubei province were investigating a new human disease throughout the latter half of 2019. David Robinson, Internet 2.0's co-chief executive officer and the paper's lead researcher said in an interview that the timing of some of the contracts, as well as the agencies behind the purchases, lend credence to the idea that officials in Hubei province were investigating a new human disease throughout the latter half of 2019.
However, he said that his firm's conclusions were not conclusive.
According to Robinson and the other co-CEO, Robert Potter, "this data does not support any origins conclusions on COVID-19," but "some part of this data might support an origins finding in the future." "Neither does this report pinpoint a specific time when a pandemic broke out. We may have to rely on third-party data points because China has gone to tremendous lengths to guarantee clear evidence is unavailable."
The origins of the coronavirus have become a contentious subject, with the U.S. and its allies accusing Beijing of blocking a more comprehensive inquiry, including reports that the virus escaped from a Wuhan biosecurity facility where similar coronaviruses were being examined.
U.S. intelligence authorities released a summary of their research into the outbreak's causes in August but said they couldn't make definitive conclusions because China refused to cooperate.
Chinese officials have denied interfering with the investigation and have forcefully refuted the Wuhan lab leak allegation. Top Chinese scientists have stated that the infection most likely originated in an animal and was spread to humans via an intermediate host – a theory backed up by the scientific community.
In an April publication in Science, researchers found that the most likely period for the first instance of COVID-19 infection in Hubei province was mid-October to mid-November 2019.
According to the corporation and other sources, Internet 2.0 shared its data with government officials from the so-called "Five Eyes" countries, a group of intelligence-sharing nations including Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.
When contacted about the report, representatives from those countries' intelligence services declined to comment.
Internet 2.0's assessment, according to Robinson, a retired Australian Army intelligence officer, is based on buying data that is publicly available on Chinese government websites. The data is scraped regularly by bidcenter.com.cn, and Internet 2.0 researchers searched the database for the term PCR.
According to Robinson, they gathered 1,716 procurement contracts in total from 2007 until the end of 2019, then spent months verifying and evaluating the data.
To rule out an increase in China, a control sample was taken from China's provinces and cities, and the top areas for PCR procurement were compared to Hubei.
In most other sectors, PCR-related purchases were relatively stable or slightly up or down. On the other hand, purchases in Beijing increased in 2019, according to the study, which does not break down purchases in provinces other than Hubei by month.
Spending on PCR equipment began to rise in Hubei province in 2014. However, the jump from 36.7 million yuan the year before to 67.36 million yuan in 2019 was particularly significant.
According to Robinson, in 2019, compared to the previous year, the types of Chinese organizations making substantial purchases of PCR equipment shifted from primarily agricultural research and hospital use to primary disease prevention and control institutes.
The Wuhan University of Science & Technology, for example, was Hubei province's most significant buyer in 2019. According to the report, the institution is linked with eight hospitals and has over 35 teaching practice bases, including 22 general hospitals and ten disease prevention and control centers.
Robinson singled out three transactions in Hubei Province as being "out of the ordinary," implying that Chinese officials dealt with a novel human pathogen earlier in 2019 than previously reported.
The first purchase, according to Robinson, occurred in May 2019 when the Chinese People's Liberation Army Airborne Hospital purchased PCR-related equipment – the database's only contract from the PLA.
In September 2019, the Wuhan Hongshan District Center for Disease Control and Prevention made two purchases of pathogen detection equipment in preparation for the upcoming Military World Games. The Washington Post stated in June that over 9,000 international athletes from over 100 nations traveled to Wuhan the next month. Many of them eventually became ill with symptoms similar to COVID-19.
According to the Washington Post, China later alleged that the U.S. Army athletes may have taken the virus with them from Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the Army conducts bioresearch.
According to the research, the third "out of trend" purchase occurred in November 2019, when the Wuhan Institute of Virology — from which proponents of the lab leak theory claim the virus emerged – purchased PCR-related equipment.
The paper stated, "These findings challenge existing assumptions about when the pandemic began and support further investigation."
