A Chinese researcher attempted to upload the genetic profile of the COVID-19 virus to a US government-run database two weeks before Beijing told the world, federal documents disclosed to a congressional committee revealed.
The delay may have slowed work on tests, treatments and vaccinations.
Chinese virologist Lili Ren submitted the sequence to GenBank, a US National Institutes of Health-run database, on December 28, 2019. Despite this, China shared the virus’s sequence with the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020.
Ren’s submission was removed on January 16, 2020, and never made publicly available.
Why is it important?
The new information raises questions about what Beijing knew in the early days of the pandemic, and the global lack of a complete understanding of the virus’s origin.
It also raises the need for caution regarding information released by the Chinese government.
In March last year, the Department of Energy concluded that COVID-19 was the result of a mistake at a CDC-designated Biosafety Level 4 lab in China.