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Chinese scientists successfully sequenced the genetic makeup of the COVID-19 virus at least two weeks before China made the information public.
According to documents shared with lawmakers and released on Wednesday (January 17), the genetic sequence of the virus was submitted to GenBank, a database run by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, on December 28, 2019, by Dr. Lili Ren of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College.
However, Ren's submission was incomplete, and officials from the NIH sent a request for more technical information three days later. The agency never received the updated information, and the genetic sequence was never made publicly available in the database.
Meanwhile, another genetic sequence that was "nearly identical" to the one that Ren submitted was published in GenBank on January 10 by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lawmakers have accused China of trying to hide the origins of COVID-19 and failing to share crucial information about the virus in the early days of the pandemic.
"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. The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayers' dollars are spent, how our government's public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight into research grants to foreign scientists. In addition to equipping us to better prepare for the next pandemic, this investigation's findings will help us as policymakers as we work to strengthen America's biosafety practices and bolster oversight of research grants," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie, and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith said in a joint statement.