Report: New PCR test intelligence around Wuhan suggests COVID-19 was virulent earlier than thought
The coronavirus may have been spreading through Wuhan, China much earlier than previously thought, according to an analysis of Chinese procurement records by Internet 2.0, a company that specializes in digital forensics and intelligence analysis.
According to a report released Monday, entitled “Procuring for a Pandemic: An Assessment of Hubei Province PCR Procurement Contracts,” there was a dramatic increase in the number of Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR, contracts inked by Hubei Province and institutions in and around Wuhan in the second half of 2019.
The Trump administration had long maintained, without evidence, that it was not coincidence that the virus appeared to come from a wet market not far from a lab in Wuhan that focused on the coronavirus. The Biden administration, for its part, has asked U.S. intelligence agencies to redouble their efforts to find the origin of the pandemic. The report from Internet 2.0 offers yet another thread to pull — third party data points in the form of PCR-related procurement contracts.
“An initial view of the data depicts the dramatic increase of PCR procurement contracts in 2019,” the report says. “The increase was present in both the contract total value and the number of contracts.”
https://therecord.media/report-new-pcr-test-intelligence-around-wuhan-suggests-covid-19-was-virulent-earlier-than-thought/
https://internet2-0.com/whitepaper/procuring-for-a-pandemic/
Purchases of molecular tests (PCRs) in the Chinese province of Hubei, where the first cases of Covid-19 were recorded, grew significantly several months before authorities officially spoke about the new coronavirus. In 2019 they were spent on swabs approximately 67.4 million yuan (equal to 9 million euros), almost double compared to 2018.
The number of contracts has grown from 89 to 135. The increase in purchases started in May, with a sharp increase between July and October, driven by four entities: the People's Liberation Army Aviation Hospital, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Hubei These are the results of a report with a rather sinister title, Procuring for a pandemic (i.e. Shopping for a pandemic), published by Internet 2.0, a company based in Barton, a suburb of the Australian capital Canberra, but also in Alexandria, in Vi rginia, a few kilometers from the US federal capital Washington.
At the head of Internet 2.0 are two CEOs: Robert Potter, inventor of the technology on which the company is based, former head of cyber operations of the British aerospace giant Bae Systems, former adviser to the Australian shadow government and an official of the US State Department ; and David Robinson, a former Australian intelligence officer. In the advisory communiqué the name of Christopher Painter stands out, one of the world's leading cyber security experts, the first cyber diplomat in the world appointed by the former US president, Barack Obama.