Chinese whistleblower alleges coronavirus originated from People's Liberation Army military lab
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Chinese virologist and whistleblower on Tuesday (July 28) alleged that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) came from a People's Liberation Army (PLA) lab.
On Tuesday, Lude Press (路德社) held a livestream interview with Yan Li-Meng (閻麗夢), a virologist who was employed as a researcher at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health when the coronavirus pandemic began and who previously accused Beijing of covering up the initial outbreak in Wuhan. Yan said that she spoke out early on because she had seen innocent doctors and patients being exposed to the highly contagious virus.
She said that as a doctor and scientist, she really could not remain indifferent. She then claimed that during her research into the human-to-human transmission of the virus, she traced the source of the outbreak to the PLA.
"At that time, I had clearly assessed that the virus came from a Chinese Communist Party military lab. The Wuhan wet market was just used as a decoy," said Yan. She then claimed that when she reported her findings to her superiors, she was not taken seriously.
The Shandong native felt it would be impossible for her to report the discovery to the high levels of the CCP: "I knew that once I spoke up, I could disappear at any time, just like all the brave protesters in Hong Kong. I could disappear at any time. Even my name would no longer exist." She also emphasized that it was her responsibility to get the information out before being "disappeared."
She pointed out that she had been raised and educated under the CCP and knew "what kinds of things the Chinese government would do" but did not dare guess "how low [the CCP] would stoop." Yan pledged that she would continue to tell the truth about the CCP and the pandemic with the hope of accelerating the outside world's understanding of the regime and helping the Chinese people to overthrow it.
In an interview with Fox News on July 10, Yan claimed that her former supervisor, Leo Poon (潘烈文), had tasked her with investigating a cluster of SARS-like cases being reported in late December. Yan said a friend of hers who is a scientist at the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in China told her that the virus appeared to be transmissible from human to human.
Yan claimed that Poon at first advised her to continue her investigation, but she said he later told her "keep silent and be careful" when she delivered more evidence on Jan. 16. Yan added that visiting professor and co-director of a WHO-affiliated lab in the university, Professor Malik Peiris, knew of her findings but failed to take any action.
Yan said that because she knew "how the Chinese authorities treated whistleblowers in order to conceal an epidemic," she knew she would have to leave for her own safety. The virologist said that she escaped from Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific flight in April to "deliver the message of the truth of COVID-19 to the world."
Based on her experiments on the highly infectious nature of the disease, she criticized the Chinese government for the blanket lockdowns issued in Wuhan. She said that locking whole families together into the confines of their homes for long periods, rather than testing and isolating individuals, exacerbated the epidemic.
In response to the Fox News interview, HKU in a statement confirmed that Yan had been a post-doctoral fellow and former staff member prior to leaving the university. However, it claimed that the assertions made in the interview do not "accord with the key facts as we understand them."
In addition, the university denied that Yan had carried out research on the human-to-human transmission of the disease between December 2019 and January 2020. The school said it "does not act on hearsay" and would not comment further on the matter.
Yan co-authored a paper with HKU colleagues on the transmission of the virus in hamsters. Titled "Pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters," it was published in the scientific journal Nature on May 2020.
Source: taiwannews.com.tw
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The Chinese virologist, who claims she fled to the U.S. after receiving threats due to her research, has accused the Chinese military of creating Covid-19.
Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist who says she fled the country after receiving threats due to her concerns about the origins of Covid-19 and claims of a cover-up involving the Chinese Communist Party, has told Taiwan News that the novel coronavirus originated in a military laboratory overseen by the People’s Liberation Army.
Yan, who says she was among the first researchers to study Covid-19 in China, has previously told the media that the virus is not naturally occurring and described the widely held theory that it originated in a so-called wet market in Wuhan as “a smokescreen.”
Speaking to Spanish daily El Mundo in July, Yan said she had been forced to flee China after raising her concerns with officials and a World Health Organization contractor called Lee Poon. She claims that she was told to “be careful and not step on the red line; that is to say, to not go against government procedures or question their principles. If not, I would find myself in trouble and I could disappear.”
Yan also said that China and the WHO were aware of the existence of Covid-19 long before the first cases were reported in Wuhan last December. The WHO declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic on 11 March.
Yan: Covid-19 came from Communist Party military lab
Yan told Taiwan News that when she approached her superiors: “I had already clearly evaluated that the virus came from a Communist Party military laboratory.”
Both China and the WHO have discredited Yan’s claims. The virologist says that China has launched a social media campaign in order to smear her professional reputation while the WHO said it has no record of Yan working at a high-level lab specializing in virus detection and pandemics pertaining to the organization while also denying it has any record of anyone named Lee Poon on file.
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Li-Meng Yan: coronavirus was developed in Chinese military lab
The Chinese virologist, who claims she fled to the U.S. after receiving threats due to her research, has accused the Chinese military of creating Covid-19.
Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist who says she fled the country after receiving threats due to her concerns about the origins of Covid-19 and claims of a cover-up involving the Chinese Communist Party, has told Taiwan News that the novel coronavirus originated in a military laboratory overseen by the People’s Liberation Army.
Yan, who says she was among the first researchers to study Covid-19 in China, has previously told the media that the virus is not naturally occurring and described the widely held theory that it originated in a so-called wet market in Wuhan as “a smokescreen.”
Speaking to Spanish daily El Mundo in July, Yan said she had been forced to flee China after raising her concerns with officials and a World Health Organization contractor called Lee Poon. She claims that she was told to “be careful and not step on the red line; that is to say, to not go against government procedures or question their principles. If not, I would find myself in trouble and I could disappear.”
Yan also said that China and the WHO were aware of the existence of Covid-19 long before the first cases were reported in Wuhan last December. The WHO declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic on 11 March.
Yan: Covid-19 came from Communist Party military lab
Both China and the WHO have discredited Yan’s claims. The virologist says that China has launched a social media campaign in order to smear her professional reputation while the WHO said it has no record of Yan working at a high-level lab specializing in virus detection and pandemics pertaining to the organization while also denying it has any record of anyone named Lee Poon on file.
