Breaking: Terrible, This is the Chernobyl of Biology’ Sun documentary exposes Wuhan ‘lab leak’ behind Covid… and US’s shock role in it….. Check In

Our exclusive documentary also probes links between a British-born businessman and American funding into bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute

FEW of us had heard of the Chinese city of Wuhan when the world was first paralysed by Covid-19 five years ago.

Today, the sprawling metropolis is synonymous with the ­pandemic that claimed 227,000 lives in the UK — along with its sinister labs where top secret biological experiments are ­carried out.

Within the first few days of Britain’s initial lockdown in March 2020, as millions were confined to their homes, questions were already being asked about whether Wuhan’s ­Institute of Virology could be behind the outbreak.

Now, as the country marks the five-year anniversary of Covid-19, an exclusive documentary by The Sun reveals the experts, scientists and investigators who not only believe the virus was caused by a lab leak, but that America helped to cover up the scandal.

Our documentary took me to the heart of the origins of Covid and explores whether China was trying to cover up the creation of a ­biological weapon by blaming the pandemic on a wet food market 17 miles away.

We also reveal that, while scientists publicly insisted the disease came from “natural” sources, behind the scenes they were exchanging messages about a laboratory leak.

One expert told us: “Watergate was nothing compared to this.

“This is the Chernobyl of biology.”

Dr Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that a few months before the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute was taken over by the Chinese military while officials deleted its databases and took on a contract for a new ventilation system.

‘Aggressively silenced’
We now know that three lab researchers fell ill in November 2019 — a month before the first Covid cases were reported to the World Health Organisation.

I think that’s when the pandemic started,” said Dr Redfield, describing a “frenzied cover-up that was keeping Chinese President Xi Jinping up at night”.

The US virologist says he was “aggressively silenced” when he voiced fears Covid had leaked from the lab, where “Batwoman” scientist Shi Zhengli was carrying out experiments on strains of corona- virus.

Dr Redfield, 73, a former US army officer, also tells The Sun of the moment President Donald Trump begged China’s president to be allowed to send a team into the country to help, only to be “ignored”.

He said the fact Covid was “ready-made” for human transmission immediately rang alarm bells.

Our documentary also probes links between a British-born businessman and American funding into bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute.

Zoologist Peter Daszak, an expert in how diseases jump from animals to humans, ran a virus-hunting group called the EcoHealth Alliance, which was given millions of taxpayer dollars through the US Department of Defence.

In May 2018, the company — which claims it is “dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from the emergence of disease” — put in a grant proposal for research that would have manipulated a virus strikingly similar to the one behind Covid-19.

Dr Redfield said: “They proposed to change this virus, and lo and behold — that is the virus that comes out.

“If you know much about grants and scientists. most of us don’t apply for grants that we don’t have data to know it’s going to work.

“I’d say it’s highly likely they’d already done the experiments before they even ­submitted for the grant.”

In January this year, EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak were banned from any federal funding for five years for using American money to carry out experiments in Wuhan.

EcoHealth Alliance has categorically denied any claims of wrong- doing and said their research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could not have started the pandemic.

By Britain’s second lockdown in November 2020, many dismissed the lab leak as a conspiracy ­theory, but in America and China, the idea was fast gaining pace.

Even scientists who produced a paper, known as Proximal Origins, had their suspicions.

Their hugely influential research rejected the idea of a lab accident but behind closed doors one of the authors, Kristian Andersen, said it was “so friggin’ likely”.