A researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology claimed that China deliberately developed the COVID-19 virus as a "bioweapon."
Researcher Chao Shao said during an interview with reporter and activist Jennifer Zeng this week that his fellow lab researchers were given different strains of coronaviruses and asked to determine which is most effective for spreading across various species.
Shao further claimed that the whereabouts of several of his colleagues could not be determined during the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan and that some of them were sent to hotels where international athletes were living to "check the health or hygiene conditions."
Shao said he thinks his colleagues were sent to the hotels to spread the coronavirus, the Jerusalem Post reported:
Chao Shao suspected that these actions were unrelated to virology research and suggested that they were potentially involved in spreading the virus.
Additionally, Chao Shao disclosed that in April 2020, he was sent to Xinjiang to assess the health status of Uyghur prisoners held in the re-education camps, ostensibly to expedite their release.
Yet, given the irrelevance of virology expertise in conducting health checks, Chao Shao strongly implied that his mission in Xinjiang was either to facilitate the virus's spread or to study its effects on humans.
The claims come after Republicans slammed the Biden administration for releasing a report on the origins of COVID they said "obscures more than it illuminates."
The report from the director of national intelligence published last week, which was several days past its required deadline, was intended to lay out the administration's intelligence on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its potential connections to the pandemic's origin.
"This is not sufficient. … We want the intelligence released, not their opinion about the intelligence," Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio) said. "We passed a law saying, 'Declassify it.' It's the law of the land. Release this so the American public can see it."