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Updated January 10th, 2022 at 16:28 IST

Canada's officer fears he was at COVID 'Ground Zero' 2 months before China's alert in 2019

Fearing he was at the ‘Ground Zero’ of COVID-19 even before China acknowledged the Coronavirus outbreak in 2019, Canada’s military officer has demanded probe

Reported by: Aanchal Nigam
Canada
Image: Unsplash/AP | Image:self
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Fearing he was at the ‘Ground Zero’ of COVID-19 even before China acknowledged the Coronavirus outbreak in December 2019, a Canadian military officer has demanded an investigation into the suspicious outbreak of illness there. According to a Daily Mail report, the long-serving officer of the Canadian military, who was not named as he still serves the forces, was among scores of other athletes who fell sick with an enervating disease after attending the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019. 

In a massive revelation into the world’s quest for the origin of the COVID outbreak in China’s Wuhan, the first known Coronavirus hotspot, the Canadian army officer has brought attention to the infection that made several athletes sick in 2019 before China officially acknowledged a new virus publicly. According to the report, the officer said that foreign competitors found that the Wuhan city of 11 million people, was ‘like a ghost town’. 

He has also revealed that there were so many cases of the mysterious virus among the Canadian team that a quarantine section was set up on their military flight back home. The media outlet stated that the officer is still suffering from the effects of his illness despite the high levels of health fitness. He revealed that a military-appointed doctor later said he almost certainly caught COVID-19.

Daily Mail quoted the unnamed Canadian officer as saying, “I'm 100 per cent convinced the virus was present in Wuhan when we were there…The burden of proof is on the scientific community and intelligence experts to prove – not for athletes.”

“I accept I am not a scientist and it might not be Covid, but why does everyone seem so reluctant to investigate properly?... It feels like we were present at Ground Zero of this pandemic that has had such impact on everyone's life, with millions of deaths and economies shut down, so why not carry out due diligence. Are the facts just too big to handle?” he added.

The officer’s revelations, reported by Daily Mail, fuel massive new concerns about China’s handling of COVID-19 and fears that the Communist government covered up the outbreak in the country that ultimately led to a pandemic. Beijing has repeatedly dismissed the speculations about the Coronavirus lab leak theory that caused the outbreak and said that it first confirmed a case of Coronavirus infection on 8 December. 

Iranian participants were reported to have died after reaching home

As per the report, several European athletes who attended the games, have said that even they had recorded COVID-19-like symptoms among people in Wuhan. It is to note that the games in Wuhan attracted over 9,000 competitors from 100 nations. Several reports have even suggested that Iranian participants of the event shortly died after returning home. 

The claims about the virus being present in Wuhan before China’s official admission were circulating around the team. The allegations, which can further severely taint the image of the Chinese government amid the COVID-19 pandemic, were rapidly denied by the top doctor in Canada's armed forces. However, Daily Mail stated that a well-connected Canadian source revealed that their intelligence experts suspect the pandemic might go back to a lab incident in Wuhan.

Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China is at the centre of the lab leak theory of Coronavirus. Wuhan houses several research centres studying bat coronaviruses. Even before the latest claims by the Canadian army officer, scientists have indicated that the structure of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, appears to be genetically engineered. It is yet to be fully proven. 

When did Canadian delegations reach Wuhan?

The ‘whistleblowing’ Canadian army officer said that a team with 168 members arrived in Wuhan on 15 October 2019 and noticed that the entire city was empty. He was quoted as saying, “There were skyscrapers as far as you could see but all the schools were shut, the cranes were not moving, there were hardly any cars and almost no one around…When team members asked about the deserted streets, they were told it was for their benefit. But I've been to previous Military Games and never seen this – and we were only 9,000 athletes in this big city.”

When did officers start feeling sick?

The officer further revealed that the Canadian athletes started witnessing flu-like symptoms including fever, nausea and exhaustion just eight days after their arrival in the Chinese city. He recalled, “I started to get symptoms just before the end of the Games. There were so many cases that a large portion of the plane back had to be quarantined for the sick.” He said that he felt so terrible while driving home from the airport, that he had to stop for three days and stay at a  hotel, where he was wiped out for six weeks. Now, almost two years after suffering the illness, which he thinks was COVID-19, he said that he is still facing some health issues.

Image: Unsplash/AP

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Published January 10th, 2022 at 16:28 IST

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