[Breitbart] China’s state-run Global Times publication raised the possibility in a long-form "investigation" on Thursday that the Chinese coronavirus originated in Europe and arrived in Wuhan in October 2019, when the city hosted the World Military Games.The Global Times admitted the conspiracy theory was "not solidly supported by hard evidence" and quoted a biology expert at Wuhan University, who stated that anonymous Wuhan residents blaming foreign countries for the Chinese coronavirus pandemic were perpetuating the conspiracy theory elsewhere in the same article had "no scientific evidence to prove the claims."
Despite this, the state propaganda outlet cited a World Health Organization (W.H.O.) report published in March that mentioned the possibility of the World Military Games, or another mass event, introducing the novel coronavirus to the city of Wuhan.
That same report states, "no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified during review" of any mass event held in Wuhan in late 2019, a quote omitted from the Global Times investigation.
The W.H.O. report, based on research conducted by both W.H.O. scientists and Chinese Communist Party operatives in Wuhan in January 2021, concluded that the likeliest scenario in which the Chinese coronavirus began infecting humans is through contact with an animal that had been infected by a third party, the original host of the virus, in China. The report dismissed other conspiracy theories posed by Communist Party officials — namely, that imported meat from abroad or a leak at a U.S. military laboratory triggered the pandemic — as unlikely. It also appeared to dismiss the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a laboratory known to have been studying coronaviruses prior to the first outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the city. The latter prompted a rare rebuke by W.H.O. Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who urged his agency to probe the matter further.
The Chinese coronavirus typically affects the respiratory system, triggering fever, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms similar to other known coronaviruses, like those responsible for Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The Global Times attempted to make the case that a gastroenteritis diagnosis at the World Military Games may have been an early Chinese coronavirus case. Gastroenteritis affects the digestive system and causes vomiting and diarrhea.
"According to the W.H.O. report, during the Military Games, four African participants were diagnosed and treated for malaria, and one American citizen presented with gastroenteritis," the Global Times noted. Malaria is a parasitic disease that does sometimes present fever, chills, and "respiratory distress," but is easily diagnosed by the presence of plasmodium parasites, according to the W.H.O.