CASE ZERO
Hunt for ‘Patient Su’ who may have been first Covid case infected by Wuhan lab ‘leak’ – weeks before first outbreak
THE HUNT is on for a Chinese woman known as "Patient Su" who may have be the first Covid case infected by a potential lab leak of the virus in Wuhan.
It is claimed the 61-year-old woman contracted a mystery condition in November - around one month before China reported the outbreak to the World Health Organisation.
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China is facing mounting pressure to come clean as circumstantial evidence continues to emerge that ties Covid to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
British spies have now admitted the theory is "feasible", US President Joe Biden has ordered a "redoubled" investigation, and a new paper claims to have evidence the virus was "engineered".
And amongst all this is a mysterious woman known only as "Patient Su", reports the .
It is claimed a mistake by a leading Chinese official disclosed the details of her case as she may have been one of the first infected with Covid.
The screengrab included in a Chinese medical journal shows "Patient Su" lived around three miles from WIV on Zhuodaoquan Street.
She fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in November and was taken to the nearby Rongjun Hospital in Wuhan.
Professor Yu Chuanhua, professor of biostatistics at Wuhan University, told Chinese journal Health Times that he had 47,000 cases on his national database of confirmed and suspected cases by late February 2020.
Amongst cases he reported two women who were treated in November.
Most personal details were blurred out in a screenshot of the medical records, but one of the November cases is the sick woman known as "Patient Su".
Her close proximity to both WIV and another less high security lab run by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control around one mile away, raises further questions about the possibility of a lab leak.
We were able to pinpoint the exact name, age and address of a very early suspected case nearly one month before the official first case
Gilles Demaneuf
His report also included a patient who got sick and died in September, but no further details were released and her case could not be categorically tied to Covid.
China furiously denies everything - last week attacking US President Joe Biden as it accused him on playing politics and reheating its own unsubstantiated claims Covid may originally come from the US.
It officially acknowledges its first case of the killer disease was on December 8, weeks after "Patient Su" is reported to have been taken ill, and the virus was first reported to WHO on December 31.
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The revelations were uncovered by Gilles Demaneuf, a data scientist who works with online sleuth team DRASTIC who are independently investigating the origins of Covid.
He said: "We were able to pinpoint the exact name, age and address of a very early suspected case nearly one month before the official first case.
"That address is right next to the subway line No 2 and also not far from a People’s Liberation Army hospital that treated some of the other earliest cases."
The subway system carries one million people a day, connects to the wet market, an international airport, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
China's rail network as people went home for the Chinese New Year holiday is believed to have played a key role in the virus's early spread.
DRASTIC previously told The Sun Online about missing databases from WIV which could be a smoking gun on the virus's origins.
What do we know about the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
THE WUHAN Institute of Virology is the highest security lab of its kind in all of China - and can be found right at the heart of the origins of the global pandemic.
Various theories have been swirling about the lab, which is headed up by Chinese scientist Dr Shi Zhengli, known as “Bat Woman”.
Most scientists do not believe the virus leaked from the lab, and the lab itself has categorically denied the claims.
The lab specialised in bat-borne viruses and had been carrying out experiences on them since 2015.
Airlocks, full body suits, and chemical showers are required before entering and leaving the lab - the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs are the only places in the world where scientists can study diseases that have no cure.
Scientists from the lab even tested mysterious
virus which killed three miners 1,000 miles away in Yunnan province back in 2012.
It has been suggested this fatal mystery bug may have been the true origin of Covid-19.
Experts at the lab also engineered a new type of hybrid 'super-virus' that can infect humans in 2015, according to medical journal
Despite fears surrounding the research, the study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
There is no suggestion the facility's 2015 work is linked to the pandemic.
The lab was also recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
China has began tightening security around its biolabs with President Xi Jinping saying it was a “national security” issue to improve scientific safety at a meeting last February.
WIV is known to have been carrying out gain-of-function research - experiments designed to soup up viruses to make them more infectious - alongside the US-funded EcoHealth Alliance.
Scrutiny is ratcheting up on China, with questions over lab safety at the facility as researchers previously admitted being bitten and sprayed with bat blood.
Despite being condemned as a "conspiracy theory" for the last year, the possibility that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak has become increasingly mainstream in recent weeks.
And meanwhile there is renewed scrutiny on the Mojiang Mine - where a mystery virus killed three miners in 2012, and from where Covid's closest living relative was recovered at a 96% match.
COVER UP
It emerged this week that Boris Johnson was briefed on a possible lab leak origin for Covid as early as April 2020.
The extraordinary revelation shows how seriously the West is taking the possibility, despite the narrative being firmly dismissed in the early days of the pandemic by scientists and politicians.
China has long been accused of covering up or distorting its role in the early days of the pandemic, with claims the Communist Party manipulated case and death figures while withholding information from WHO.
But as more and more questions emerge, even WHO have ordered a fresh probe after a its first effort was derided and accused of being a "whitewash".
Biden's predecessor Donald Trump repeatedly suggested in the final months of his term that the virus came from WIV - and insisted the US had concrete evidence.
And his former medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci made his own admission that he is now no longer convinced the Covid originated naturally and called for a full investigation.
British MPs are continuing to demand a fresh investigation, after first calling for one when speaking to The Sun Online back in January.
Meanwhile, a senior Whitehall source told that British officials are working with the new US probe into the killer outbreak.
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It emerged last week Wuhan lab staff became sick and needed hospital care weeks before China admitted it was facing an outbreak.
Citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report, the said the dossier revealed fresh details and claimed the lab workers fell ill in November.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Meanwhile, it emerged that China had probed weaponising coronaviruses some five years before the outbreak.
There is currently no evidence to suggest the virus was intentionally released by China.
Biden pushes US spies to investigate Covid ‘leak’ theory after ‘SHUTTING DOWN’ Wuhan lab probe
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