A Chinese researcher possessed a nearly complete DNA sequence of Covid weeks before the Chinese government shared it with the world, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported

Covid was first identified in China in December 2019

For weeks thereafter, China described the outbreak to the world as viral pneumonia “of unknown cause,” leading to initial confusion about the nature of the disease

China eventually shared Covid’s DNA sequence with the WHO on January 11, 2020

For months, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), has investigated Covid’s origins

Per documents presented to that committee and reviewed by the WSJ, a Chinese researcher uploaded a nearly-complete sequence of Covid weeks before China shared it with the WHO

Per the documents, on December 28, 2019, a Chinese scientist, Dr. Lili Ren, uploaded the sequence to a US-run database

Ren, who worked for a state-affiliated research institute, also received funding from the US to study coronaviruses

Ren’s Covid sequence was deleted from the database on January 16, 2020 after she didn’t respond to an inquiry by US officials

She never publicly acknowledged the upload but published an article in May 2020 describing how she and others took samples from patients in Wuhan, China between December 18 and 29

The finding suggests China possessed information about Covid in late 2019 but didn't share it

McMorris Rodgers said the finding proves that the US “cannot trust any of the so-called “facts” or data provided by the [Chinese Communist Party]”

It also “calls into serious question the legitimacy of scientific theories based on such information”

The finding didn’t shed light on whether the virus formed naturally or was the result of a lab leak

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