he games, held Oct. 18-28, 2019, featured more than 9,000 international athletes traveling from more than 100 countries, many of whom later reported getting sick with COVID-19-like symptoms. In letters to the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Health and Human Services (HHS), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) are asking for information on the possibility that U.S. Army troops who participated in the games contracted COVID-19 infections.
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin was the first to report the lawmakers' inquiry. Identifying whether participants in the 2019 games were exposed to COVID-19 is crucial to developing a timeline of the pandemic's spread, which could help scientists discover the origins of the virus and take steps to prevent or mitigate the damage from the next pandemic.
Rogin reported:
As the covid-19 pandemic took hold worldwide in early 2020, athletes from several countries — including France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg — claimed publicly they had contracted what they believed to be covid-19 at the games in Wuhan, based on their symptoms and how their illnesses spread to their loved ones. In Washington, military leaders either dismissed the idea out of hand or weren't aware of it. Meanwhile, no one performed any antibody testing or disease tracing on these thousands of athletes. No one even attempted to find out whether the games in Wuhan was, in fact, the first international pandemic superspreader event.
If more evidence were discovered, it would add to the growing body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan as early as October 2019, months before the Chinese government acknowledged it to the rest of the world. U.S. intelligence reports have said that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized with covid-like symptoms in November 2019. But U.S. officials have said they have other information suggesting that the outbreak began even earlier.
If more evidence were discovered, it would add to the growing body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan as early as October 2019, months before the Chinese government acknowledged it to the rest of the world. U.S. intelligence reports have said that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized with covid-like symptoms in November 2019. But U.S. officials have said they have other information suggesting that the outbreak began even earlier.
"These reports are extremely troubling and cast further doubt on the CCP's official timeline regarding the spread of this virus," Rep. Gallagher said. "Information involving the health of those who participated in the 2019 games could provide critical insight into understanding where and when COVID-19 first emerged, and it's essential for the Biden Administration to immediately release this information to the public."
