White House endorses COVID lab leak theory, but will anyone be held accountable?



On April 18, the White House publicly endorsed the COVID lab leak theory. The government’s official COVID website was also redirected to a new page titled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19,” which contends that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and was leaked by accident.

The revamped site criticizes Anthony Fauci, David Morens, Andrew Cuomo, the WHO, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Biden administration, among others, for actively promoting false information and covering up the truth.

It cites five points to support the lab leak claim:

1. “The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”

2. “Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.”

3. “Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels.”

4. “Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.”

5. “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”

After years of the Biden administration and his loyal media allies promoting a lie, it’s refreshing to see the government proclaim the truth.

But while Glenn Beck sees the website as “an amazing thing,” the information on it isn’t exactly news.

“Most of this stuff we had within six or eight months of the actual outbreak,” he says.

The real question is: “Who’s going to jail over this?”

The other question is: Why doesn’t the legacy media seem interested in correcting the narrative?

“Millions of people died here. You'd think that it would be something [the media] would focus on and draw a lot of attention to and continue to kind of beat the drum until someone was held responsible, and they don't seem to have any interest in that,” says co-host Stu Burguiere, noting that most of these outlets “have run an op-ed” about the lab leak theory and called it good.

“If we make a mistake, we correct it because it drives us crazy that we made the mistake, and I don’t want anybody to believe that I’m standing behind something that is wrong and a lie,” says Glenn.

The legacy media clearly doesn’t have the same convictions.

“They knowingly lied” about COVID, Joe Biden’s cognitive state, and Russiagate, and yet, “There’s no consequence.”

“They’re not going to lose any advertisers. The New York Times hasn't lost any real money because of this. Their people just continue to watch,” says Glenn.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

'An outrage': Biden admin hid report of US service members getting sick at Wuhan military games in October 2019



Nearly 10,000 athletes from over 109 countries traveled to Wuhan, China, to compete in the 7th Military World Games from October 18 to October 28, 2019.

Participants from various nations, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Luxembourg, reported taking ill with COVID-like symptoms at or after the games — a damning coincidence granted the games took place near the suspected origin of the virus, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where dangerous experiments were long performed with poor safety protocols on coronaviruses.

The Biden administration apparently sat on a December 2022 report indicating that some of the 263 members of the U.S. delegation who attended the games may have also caught COVID-19 or something just like it months before the supposed zoonotic leap at a wet market.

By concealing the document, the administration effectively left the public with then-Pentagon spokesman John Kirby's 2021 assertion to the Washington Post that there was no knowledge of American infections at the games and no evidence to indicate U.S. military personnel were infected before travel restrictions were implemented in early 2020.

The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act included a requirement that former President Joe Biden's then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin submit to congressional lawmakers a report on the military games detailing:

  • the number of American athletes and staff "who attended the 2019 World Military Games and became ill with COVID-19-like symptoms during or shortly after their return to the United States";
  • the results of any blood testing done on American participants;
  • the number of home station Pentagon facilities of participating members that experienced outbreaks in early 2020; and
  • whether the Pentagon discussed the illnesses surrounding the games with other militaries.

In addition to disclosing such information to the House and Senate armed services committees, the NDAA required that the Biden administration make the report publicly available.

'It is an outrage that the Biden White House and the 118th Congress Senate and House Armed Services Committees did not publicly release this information.'

The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Biden administration refrained from releasing the report to the public, and it wasn't until March 2025 when the Trump administration uploaded it to the Defense Department website that the document became widely accessible.

Contrary to Kirby's suggestion that there was no knowledge or evidence of infection, the Pentagon concluded that of the 263 total American participants in the game — of whom 2019 were military personnel — seven service members "exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms during the timeframe of October 18, 2019, through January 21, 2020."

Members of the U.S. delegation to the games were not tested for COVID-19 or antibodies "as testing was not available at this early stage of the pandemic," so there is apparently no definitive proof these were indeed COVID-19 infections.

The report indicated the symptoms could have been caused by other respiratory infections and that all seven infected service members' symptoms resolved within six days.

The report noted further that there was "no statistically significant difference in COVID-19-like symptoms cases at installations with participating athletes when compared to installations without them."

Molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University told the Free Beacon, "It is an outrage that the Biden White House and the 118th Congress Senate and House Armed Services Committees did not publicly release this information when it became available in 2022, but, instead, withheld this information for the duration of their terms."

"This new information strengthens U.S. and allied intelligence data indicating that COVID-19 was circulating in Wuhan in October-November 2019, U.S. and allied intelligence data indicating that researchers working with genetically enhanced SARS viruses at Wuhan Institute of Virology contracted COVID-19 in October-November 2019, and phylogenomic data indicating that the virus that causes COVID-19 entered humans in July-November 2019," added Ebright.

Sen. Jodi Ernst (R-Iowa) told the Free Beacon that the report helped put a nail in the coffin of the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan wet market in December 2019.

"Taxpayers deserve to know the truth about COVID-19 origins, but the Biden administration concealed this information from the American people for years," said Ernst. "This report should have been made public immediately and not restricted to Washington insiders. If Americans visiting Wuhan were potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus in October 2019, those claiming the pandemic began in a wet market just two months later would be completely off base."

Ahead of the games — as early as August 2019 — hospitals in the region were apparently overwhelmed with an unseasonably high number of patients, while regional queries for the terms "diarrhea" and "cough" spiked on China's equivalent of Google.

An American researcher and several European researchers noted their suspicions in a September 2022 study that the Wuhan games "may have contributed to the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2" but indicated that "no official information has been made available despite reports that some foreign participants experienced Covid-19-compatible symptoms that were attributed to influenza or gastroenteritis."

French pentathlete Elodie Clouvel, Luxembourg swimmer Julien Henx, German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock, and Italian fencer Matteo Tagliariol also indicated they and/or members of their team got sick while in Wuhan.

Brock indicated in early 2020 that "after a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days."

"I have never felt so sick," continued Brock. "Either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19."

Tagliariol told Corriere della Sera, "When we arrived in Wuhan, almost all of us got sick. But the worst was returning home. After a week I had a very high fever, I felt like I couldn't breathe."

Canadian military sources told the Financial Post in 2021 that one service member reported feeling "very sick 12 days after we arrived, with fever, chills, vomiting, insomnia."

Scores of Canadian athletes were apparently placed in isolation on their 12-hour flight home at the end of October. The athletes' symptoms included coughing and diarrhea.

The Canadian Department of National Defense told Blaze News last year that "some athletes experienced gastrointestinal symptoms on the flight to Wuhan for the Military World Games and during the return flight home to Canada."

"Their symptoms and illness course of one to three days were consistent with gastrointestinal illness, or a 'stomach flu,' and were managed as such," said a spokeswoman for the National Defense Department.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Biden Administration Concealed Congressionally Mandated Report on Earliest Suspected American COVID Cases

Seven Americans may have contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan in October 2019, several months before the reported start of the pandemic, according to a bombshell military report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that the Biden administration concealed from the public.

The post Biden Administration Concealed Congressionally Mandated Report on Earliest Suspected American COVID Cases appeared first on .

Four more years (it's only fair)

Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and federal inmate, made a startling prediction this week during an interview with Chris Cuomo, the former CNN host best known for giggling with his big brother, former New York governor and sex pest Andrew Cuomo, while COVID-19 was ravaging the state's nursing homes. "I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028," Bannon said. "A man like this comes along once every century, if we're lucky."

The post Four more years (it's only fair) appeared first on .

Fauci cabalist, top gain-of-function scientist raise alarm about dangerous new experiments



One the world's most prominent gain-of-function researchers — whose methods were adapted by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work on chimeric viruses — and one of the scientists who helped furnish Anthony Fauci with what he needed to downplay the lab-leak theory are now sounding the alarm about dangerous new coronavirus experiments conducted by the Chinese.

Criticism may have been easier this time around, given that the critics and their friends do not appear to be directly linked to the dangerous research in question.

Ralph Baric and W. Ian Lipkin expressed concern in a March 3 New York Times op-ed that Chinese scientists "are experimenting with viruses in ways that could put all of us in harm's way."

Baric, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and microbiology at the University of North Carolina, is a leading proponent of gain-of-function research who successfully fought for an exemption from the Obama administration's moratorium on the dangerous practice in order to keep manufacturing artificial SARS-like viruses. He became an especially controversial figure during the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over 7 million people worldwide.

Lipkin, the John Snow professor of epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, was one of the co-authors of the controversial March 2020 paper "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2," which Fauci used on multiple occasions to suggest to the American public that COVID-19 was not a lab leak but rather an animal virus that jumped to a human. Lipkin, who later thanked Fauci for his "efforts in steering and messaging" regarding the virus' origins, has reportedly long had a cozy relationship with Chinese communist authorities.

Baric and Lipkin indicated that they are particularly concerned about experiments conducted by WIV researchers and other Chinese scientists on a deadly coronavirus called HKU5-CoV-2. These experiments are detailed in a recent paper published in the scientific journal Cell.

The duo noted that the virus at the heart of the study "belongs to a subgroup of viruses that are classified alongside the one that causes MERS and that can have fatality rates far higher than that of the virus that caused the Covid pandemic."

While HKU5 can infect humans and has the potential to be far more lethal than SARS-CoV-2, Chinese scientists have apparently been meddling with the fully infectious virus in a lab with "insufficient" containment controls.

There are multiple biosafety level ratings for laboratories ranging from BSL-1 to BSL-4. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "each biosafety level builds on the controls of the level before it."

'Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions.'

A BSL-4 lab, for instance, is designed to handle microbes that are "dangerous and exotic, posing a high risk of aerosol-transmitted infections" that could prove fatal. Researchers in such a lab must manipulate the infectious agents using a gas-tight sealed container with a double HEPA filtered exhaust while wearing protective gear. Alternatively, they must wear a full-body, air-supplied positive pressure suit. Researchers must also undergo routine medical surveillance for signs of infection.

Such a high-security lab must also be located in a separate building or in a restricted zone of an existing building with double locking doors and provided with a dedicated supply of air along with decontamination systems.

Despite the dangers posed to the researchers and the rest of mankind, the Chinese researchers have instead been experimenting in a lab described as BSL-2 plus. BSL-2 labs are meant to handle only microbes that pose, at worst, moderate hazards to researchers and the environment.

"Decisions about what level of precaution is appropriate for research are typically made by a study's lead scientist and an institutional biosafety committee," wrote Baric and Lipkin.

The lead scientist on this dangerous study was Shi Zhengli, whose track record for safety is less than stellar and with whom Baric has previously collaborated.

According to a 2021 article in the MIT technology review, Baric asked Shi, who is the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the WIV, for the genome of a new coronavirus Shi found in bat excrement. He apparently wanted to take the "spike" gene from the novel virus and stick it into a copy of a SARS virus he had on hand. Ultimately, Baric's team tested the resultant chimeric virus on humanized mice and in a petri dish of human airway cells and discovered that it could indeed infect humans.

Baric and Lipkin noted in their op-ed that while the relevant authorities in China apparently approved the dangerous new experiments on HKU5, "it is not sufficient for work with a new virus that could have significant risks for people worldwide."

"Work with viruses that have the potential to become threats to public health should be restricted to facilities and scientists committed to the highest level of safety," added the duo.

According to Baric and Lipkin, governmental and nongovernmental agencies that fund research on viruses should require "proof that investigators meet global standards." Additionally, scientific journals should insist on similar standards for the studies they accept.

The duo concluded, "Potentially dangerous research should not be done without proper precautions to prevent deliberate or accidental spread."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

USAID: A slush fund for the deep state



As I write this, President Trump is on the verge of shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development. This will be one of the most important and essential moves of his presidency. Few institutions in modern history have operated with such sinister intent while positioning themselves as a force for good.

When USAID collapses, it will be a victory for the American people.

The agency provided tens of millions of dollars to the same organization linked to dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

For decades, USAID has been billed as the United States' primary vehicle for humanitarian and development assistance abroad. We're assured that its mission is noble: fostering economic growth, providing disaster relief, and supporting democracy-building initiatives.

However, its actual mission is anything but noble.

A vehicle for absolute chaos

It involves supporting covert operations, regime-change efforts, and activities that align more with the CIA than with humanitarian initiatives. For far too long, USAID has served as a dangerous instrument of empire, one that has actively weakened democracy abroad while draining American taxpayers at home.

To understand USAID’s true nature, one must start with its origins. The agency was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, ostensibly to assist developing nations in modernizing and alleviating poverty.

But from the very beginning, the waters were poisoned.

Former USAID Director John Gilligan admitted as much, stating, "At one time, many AID field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people."

This was no accident. USAID has long served as a hub for intelligence operations, shaping political movements and offering protection for various swamp creatures, one of whom will be discussed shortly.

Forced sterilization

One of USAID’s most notorious branches was its Office of Public Safety, which functioned throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. OPS presented itself as an organization dedicated to training foreign police forces in modern law enforcement techniques.

In reality, it was a training ground for torturers. In Brazil, USAID-linked operatives taught police forces to refine their brutality, introducing methods that would later be classified as "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

"Enhanced interrogation" is a more polite way of saying state-sanctioned sadism. The same techniques that would later be framed in legal terms during the War on Terror — stress positions, sensory deprivation, waterboarding — were initially described as "security assistance" to South American forces. The office was eventually shuttered in 1974, yet USAID’s role in such sordid operations never truly ended.

Beyond its direct involvement in torture, the agency has also played a key role in population control efforts. In the 1960s, USAID began funding forced sterilization programs across the globe.

Under the leadership of Dr. Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt, USAID’s Office of Population implemented mass sterilization campaigns in countries ranging from India to Peru. These programs often targeted impoverished communities, where women were subjected to sterilization procedures without informed consent.

Worse, USAID funneled money to organizations that distributed defective contraceptives and IUDs, many of which caused severe harm or even death.

While they marketed these programs as efforts to combat poverty, they were nothing more than eugenics under a different name.

Aiding China

In 2014, it was revealed that USAID had made a number of bungled, easily detected attempts to recruit anti-government activists in Cuba — including the creation of a "Cuban Twitter," launching a hip-hop festival, and staging an HIV workshop. These efforts resulted in the arrest of one American and the detainment and interrogation of a number of Cubans.

More recently, USAID has been involved in questionable funding of controversial scientific research. The agency provided tens of millions of dollars to Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, the same organization linked to dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Disguised as an academic grant, it was essentially a blank check for experiments that manipulated viral evolution, raising significant questions about what the U.S. government knew and when.

Funding left-wing lunacy

The agency has a notorious reputation for squandering taxpayer money on unsuccessful, even pointless, projects. Billions of dollars have been funneled into initiatives that produce little to no measurable success. In many cases, USAID has actually made conditions worse by fostering corruption and dependency rather than genuine economic growth.

This fact is not lost on Richard Grenell. The former acting director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to Germany recently took to X to point a virtual finger at one of the biggest wasters of money: Samantha Power.

A deep-state official and a puppet of the Obama administration, Power served as the USAID administrator until very recently. Grenell accused her of wasting excessive sums on extreme left-wing agendas that most Americans would actively oppose. He suggested that an investigation is long overdue. He's right. The American people deserve answers. They deserve the truth.

You, the reader, deserve full transparency.

This includes information about USAID’s connections to corrupt corporate interests. Behind the vague promise of "economic development," the agency has consistently acted as a gateway for U.S. corporations to exploit foreign markets. It has financed projects that benefit multinational agribusinesses, biotech companies, and pharmaceutical giants instead of the populations it claims to assist.

For instance, in Ethiopia, USAID overlooked human rights violations while directing aid money into development initiatives that displaced thousands. The agency has consistently operated more as a tool of economic imperialism than as a humanitarian organization.

End the madness

When President Trump shuts down USAID, he will be doing the country a massive favor. He will eliminate a fraudulent, exploitative, intelligence-linked entity that has long since outlived any usefulness it may once have had. One might argue that it was never useful to begin with — unless, of course, you happen to be someone like Samantha Power.

She's gone, and it's time her beloved agency went the same way.

The notion that America should act as a global benefactor through an organization that consistently undermines its own interests is absurd. True humanitarian assistance should be voluntary and transparent, not a front for crime and coercion.

Coalition of state AGs seek to bypass Biden pardon and hold Fauci accountable



Just hours before leaving office, former President Joe Biden issued a pardon for Anthony Fauci, giving the fifth director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases a pass for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — around the time the Obama administration supposedly halted funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.

While Biden's stated intention was to spare the 84-year-old immunologist from "being investigated or prosecuted," the geriatric Democrat could not ultimately spare Fauci from being held accountable for possible violations of state laws.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and 16 other state attorneys general have launched an investigation into Fauci's role in the COVID-19 pandemic response, "demanding accountability for alleged mismanagement, misleading statements, and suppression of scientific debate."

After referencing damning findings by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concerning Fauci, the attorneys general urged House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) in a letter Wednesday to "consider using all available tools" at Congress' disposal to "ensure that former President Biden's shameful pardon does not frustrate accountability."

The state attorneys general evidently have one particular "tool" in mind.

Underscoring that Biden's pardon does not "preclude state-level investigations or legal proceedings," they noted that members of Congress can refer pertinent findings to state officials who "possess the authority to address violations of state law or breaches of public trust."

'We are fully prepared to take appropriate action to ensure justice is served.'

"You are uniquely positioned to assist us by providing us with information that could outline potential courses of action under state law, should they exist," said the letter. "If possible, please furnish us with the necessary details so that we may make informed decisions aimed at holding malign actors accountable."

The congressional report cited in the letter found that:

  • Fauci got the ball rolling on the controversial paper "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" with the apparent aim of discrediting the lab leak theory, which is now widely regarded as the most likely explanation. Fauci may have wanted to push the zoonotic origin theory, not only to avoid blaming China for the pandemic but because his fingerprints were all over the alternative origin. After all, EcoHealth Alliance, whose subcontractor Ben Hu — the Wuhan Institute of Virology's lead on gain-of-function research on coronaviruses — was among the pandemic's suspected patients zero, used NIAID funding to collaborate with the Wuhan lab.
  • Fauci "played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function research" in an apparent effort to deceive federal lawmakers while testifying under oath. The report indicated that whereas Fauci stated on multiple occasions that the National Institutes of Health and NIAID had not funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, his "testimony was, at a minimum, misleading" as such research had been funded through EcoHealth Alliance.
  • The NIAID under Fauci "fostered an environment that promoted evading the Freedom of Information Act."
  • The NIAID failed to adequately oversee EcoHealth Alliance, with Fauci admitting that he signed off on grants without reviewing them.

The state attorneys general noted further that it is clear that Fauci also "led a deliberate campaign to stifle the voices of premier health scholars regarding the lack of adequate testing of vaccines" and engaged in a propaganda campaign that "contributed to serious vaccine injuries — and in some cases, death."

Federal lawmakers may soon get their hands on evidence of other possible causes for state action.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced on Jan. 27 that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee subpoenaed 14 agencies in connection with the origins of COVID-19 and taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) revealed the following day that he had "issued his first subpoena as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to the Department of Health and Human Services for records relating to COVID-19 vaccine safety data and communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails."

"President Biden's blanket pardon of Dr. Fauci is a shameful attempt to prevent accountability," Wilson said in a statement. "If any of these findings indicate violations of state laws, we are fully prepared to take appropriate action to ensure justice is served."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Elon Musk’s Claim Linking USAID To Bioweapons Isn’t As Far-Fetched As The Deep State Wants You To Think

'Where it went wrong is when the virologists got the idea to manipulate the viruses'

‘It will seal his fate’: Rand Paul GOES OFF on rumor that Biden will pardon Dr. Fauci



Rumors have begun circulating that President Biden will issue preemptive pardons for many people he believes Donald Trump will go after as president — including Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“It doesn’t seem like you could do that, but they’ll try it anyway,” Glenn Beck of “The Glenn Beck Program” tells guest Senator Rand Paul.

“I’ve sent referrals, criminal referrals, on Anthony Fauci twice to the Department of Justice without really a response. Merrick Garland hasn’t done his job; he’s probably been the most partisan attorney general we’ve ever had. I will send those referrals again if they preemptively pardon Anthony Fauci,” Paul explains.

“It will seal his fate as the architect, author, and godfather of the pandemic,” Paul continues. “He’s the one that funded it; he’s the one that funded the research in Wuhan; he’s the one that allowed the research not to be scrutinized.”


“There was a safety committee that was supposed to scrutinize dangerous research. It was set up because of fear of exactly this happening. There have been scientists talking about this for 20 years, worried that this is going to happen. Anthony Fauci sidestepped the safety committee and allowed this research to go on,” he explains.

“Then when it came forward that he had done it, he was like, ‘Oh, nothing to see here, we didn’t really do it. Oh, well, we funded EcoHealth, and they funded Wuhan, but oh, nothing to see here,’” he continues. “And then he had the gall to say it wasn’t gain-of-function and it wasn’t dangerous. That’s a lie.”

Which is why Paul doesn’t believe a presidential pardon will do much for Fauci at this point.

“If the president pardons him, I think it’ll just cement his role in history as being the architect of gain-of-function,” Paul tells Glenn, who believes that this is where Trump’s appointed FBI director, Kash Patel, can come in.

“I hope he releases just the raw evidence that has been gathered,” Glenn says. “You know, kind of like the Twitter files, where we can see all the stuff that has been classified that should be seen by the American people.”

“The FBI did do their job. They did a report, and they said that they thought COVID came from a lab, that the virus or the pandemic started with a lab leak, but they haven’t released their report. They’ve been told to declassify it,” Paul says, adding, “I truly believe Kash Patel will look at that.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Blaze News original: In 2019, nearly 10,000 international athletes competed in Wuhan. The official story about illnesses continues to morph.



Early in the pandemic, there was a concerted effort to downplay the possibility that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where radical gain-of-function experiments were conducted on coronaviruses, sometimes with American funding. Now, it appears that the lab origin theory was all along the most likely explanation.

The exact timeline regarding the initial leak and subsequent spread remains, however, somewhat fuzzy. The Chinese regime's cover-up of the initial spread and its destruction of critical evidence have made it difficult to nail down precisely when and how the virus got out.

Blaze News recently discovered that China may not have, however, been the only nation reluctant to disclose illnesses in Wuhan in late 2019.

Playing games with the timeline

Months prior to the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in late December 2019. The constituents of this cluster were far from being patients zero.

Three researchers meddling with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — including an EcoHealth Alliance subcontractor— became sick enough "with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness" that they needed to be hospitalized in November 2019.

Chinese state media indicated that the virus may have begun spreading as early September of that year but, in a desperate effort to assign blame elsewhere, suggested it kicked off in the United States.

Researchers at Boston University and Harvard Medical School analyzed satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan as well as search queries on China's equivalent of Google from 2018 up until late 2019 and concluded that the virus may have begun spreading as early as August 2019.

"Between September and October 2019, 5 of the 6 hospitals show their highest relative daily [parking lot] volume of the analyzed series, coinciding with elevated levels of Baidu search queries for the terms 'diarrhea' and 'cough,'" said the study. "Our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market."

In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data. While surprising, this finding lines up with the recent recognition that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are a unique feature of COVID-19 disease and may be the chief complaint of a significant proportion of presenting patients. This symptom search increase is then followed by a rise in hospital parking lot traffic in October and November, as well as a rise in searches for cough. While we cannot conclude the reason for this increase, we hypothesize that broad community transmission may have led to more acute cases requiring medical attention, resulting in higher viral loads and worse symptoms.

If the virus was in circulation by at least October, then a convention of nearly 10,000 athletes from around the world in Wuhan would have served as the perfect vehicle to take the virus global in short order.

In fact, some researchers have suggested that there was a good likelihood that the 7th Military World Games held in Wuhan from October 18 to October 28 — where delegates from 109 countries competed, in some cases near the Wuhan Institute of Virology — were indeed a super-spreading event.

Mixed messaging

Two Canadian military sources who requested anonymity because they were still serving in the Canadian military told the Financial Post in 2021 that there had been infections at the games.

One service member claimed he got "very sick 12 days after we arrived, with fever, chills, vomiting, insomnia. … On our flight to come home (at the end of October), 60 Canadian athletes on the flight were put in isolation (at the back of the plane) for the 12-hour flight. We were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea and in between."

Upon returning to Canada, the service member said his family members took ill and his symptoms got worse and expanded, such that he experienced fatigue, nosebleeds, fever, and breathing pains.

While tested by a military doctor "for various issues," he said he never was tested "for anything respiratory."

The other service member said, "One-quarter of us got sick, there and when we returned. Some were bedridden for weeks. This made us potential vectors for the virus. The military did nothing. I was sick and others were, too, with Wuhan symptoms. … I was eventually given a swab test, which measures only recent exposure, and told to carry on."

The Canadian athletes were apparently told by the surgeon general that their risk of having been exposed was "negligible."

Julia Scott, a communications adviser with the Canadian Forces Health Services Public Affairs Department, told the Post, "We are not aware of any CAF members or civilians becoming sick at the games or after they returned. There have not been any COVID-19 cases identified amongst this group."

"As their stay in Wuhan was well before COVID-19 pandemic was declared and before anyone was aware of the virus, members were not tested upon their return. Testing for COVID-19 was not available in Canada prior to January 2020," continued Scott. "Once we were aware of potential risks, the CAF and Department of National Defence took immediate precautionary measures to avoid any illness or additional exposure to CAF members related to the novel coronavirus."

A narrative slide

Blaze News recently asked the Canadian Department of National Defense whether its awareness about CAF members or civilians becoming sick at the Wuhan games, as expressed to the Post, has shifted in the years since.

In reply, a spokeswoman for the National Defense Department repeated much of what the department had previously told the Post but revealed that it "has subsequently been determined that some athletes experienced gastrointestinal symptoms on the flight to Wuhan for the Military World Games and during the return flight home to Canada."

"Their symptoms and illness course of one to three days were consistent with gastrointestinal illness, or a 'stomach flu,' and were managed as such, consistent with typical contact precautions when managing patients with mild gastrointestinal illness," added the spokeswoman.

The Mayo Clinic lists the following as symptoms of the stomach flu: diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps, muscle aches, headache, and fever.

It appears the stomach flu could possibly be mistaken for COVID-19 or vice versa, given that the symptoms listed for COVID-19 by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include diarrhea, nausea, muscle aches, and headache.

The Canadian Department of National Defense has yet to respond to Blaze News' follow-up questions regarding the basis and timing of its subsequent determination, as well as whether the athletes' supposed gastrointestinal illness has been ruled out as COVID-19.

The spokeswoman's suggestion that athletes were sick en route to Wuhan may muddy the waters, especially since China has proven desperate in the past to claim Western forces brought the virus to Wuhan, potentially via the games.

For instance, Chinese operatives seized upon the theory that Maatje Benassi, a U.S. Army reservist who competed in Wuhan, was patient zero after she crashed during a cycling competition there and suffered a concussion.

Blaze News has reached out to coaches and scores of athletes from various countries who competed in Wuhan as well as officials linked to the International Military Sports Council — the outfit that organizes the competitions — for a better sense of the kind of illnesses that supposedly broke out at the games as well as where they may have originated.

While so far, there has been a deafening silence about infections at the games, it was not so early in the pandemic.

Early allegations of infection

There were multiple reports and admissions of infections at the games early in the pandemic by athletes besides the anonymous Canadians.

French pentathlete Elodie Clouvel, part of the French delegation invited to participate at the games, indicated in early 2020 that she and many other athletes likely contracted COVID-19 at the games, reported the American Prospect.

"We were in Wuhan for the World Military Games at the end of October. And afterwards, we all fell ill. Valentin missed three days of training. Me, I was sick too. … I had things I had never had before. We weren’t particularly worried because no one was talking about it yet," said Clouvel. "A lot of athletes at the World Military Games were very ill. We were recently in touch with a military doctor who told us, ‘I think you had it because a lot of people from this delegation were ill.'"

Luxembourg swimmer Julien Henx told RTL Radio that two of his teammates got sick during the competition and stated, "There were 200,000 Chinese volunteers there, who went home in the evening and could very well have transmitted the virus to them."

German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock indicated in early 2020 that "after a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days."

"I have never felt so sick," continued Brock. "Either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19."

Italian fencer Matteo Tagliarol told Corriere Della Sera, "When we arrived in Wuhan, almost all of us got sick. But the worst was returning home. After a week I had a very high fever, I felt like I couldn't breathe. The illness didn't go away even with antibiotics, I recovered after three weeks and remained debilitated for a long time. Then my son and my partner got sick. When people started talking about the virus, I said to myself: I've caught it too."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!