COVID PANDEMIC INQUIRIES CLOAKED IN SECRECY

    For its part, the Chinese government has been pushing hard the unproven theory that the virus began in another country and the document does not rule out ‘the possibility that the virus may have silently circulated elsewhere’ before infecting people in Wuhan.
   It does, however, add that the virus has been ‘remarkably stable’ since being first reported in the city and spreading around the world, ‘suggesting that the virus was well adapted to human transmission from the moment it was first detected’.
   This claim was first published in a study – revealed by this newspaper in May – that raised questions over how the virus became so adept at infecting humans. It also challenged claims the disease originated in a Wuhan wildlife market, which was ruled out later that month by Beijing.
   In the meantime, medical staff who responded to the first outbreak of Covid 19 in Wuhan have been warned they could be charged with espionage – which carries the death penalty – if they reveal details about the disease’s eruption in the city. (Almost every case in China’s courts ends with conviction.)
    This is the latest disturbing attempt by Communist Party chiefs to suppress details about the pandemic’s   outbreak which was followed by the arrest of doctors who tried to warn local citizens and by outside experts barred from entering China.