Chinese Virologist Says Beijing Covered Up Virus Outbreak, Seeks Asylum in US: Report

Researchers in protective suits work at a biopharmaceutical lab in Shenyang city, Liaoning Province, China, on June 9, 2020. (NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)

A Hong Kong virologist has revealed that she was looking into the CCP virus back in December 2019, and was allegedly told by a Chinese official about the virus’ risk of human-to-human transmission on Dec. 31—well before this was publicly confirmed by the regime and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr. Yan Li-Meng, in an interview with Fox News published on July 10, said she was told by her supervisor at Hong Kong University’s School of Public Health to study the SARS-like virus coming out of the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last December. Unable to obtain information from Chinese authorities, Yan said she turned to a friend, a scientist at the Chinese regime’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention who had first-hand knowledge of the outbreak.

The friend told her that the disease could spread between humans on Dec. 31. The regime officially reported the outbreak that day, but did not confirm human-to-human transmission until Jan. 21 after weeks of initially claiming there was little or no evidence of this occurring.

Yan fled to the United States in April and has sought asylum, fearing punishment if she were to return to Hong Kong.

“The reason I came to the U.S. is because I deliver the message of the truth of COVID,” Yan told Fox News.

The scientist’s claims add to mounting evidence showing that Beijing was aware of the severity of the initial outbreak and covered it up. By the time it acknowledged human-to-human transmission and locked down Wuhan, five million residents had left the city, seeding the virus across China and around the world.

Yan said when she reported her findings of the outbreak’s severity to her supervisor in mid-January, she was told “to keep silent, and be careful.”

“As he warned me before, ‘don’t touch the red line,’” Yan told Fox News. “We will get in trouble and we'll be disappeared.”

Numerous leaked internal documents obtained by The Epoch Times reveal that authorities have consistently underreported the number of CCP virus cases in various regions across China, even as fresh outbreaks emerged in recent months in northeastern China and the country’s capital Beijing.

The WHO, which has repeatedly praised the regime for its “transparency” amid the pandemic, recently corrected its official account of how it was informed of China’s initial outbreak. Previously, the body’s official timeline said Chinese health authorities notified it of the disease on Dec. 31, but this was changed to say that its office in China “picked up a media statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website” on cases of so-called viral pneumonia in the Chinese city.

Last week, the United States filed a notice to officially withdraw from the WHO over its role in aiding the regime’s coverup of the pandemic. The United Nations body has started the process of investigating the origins of the outbreak.