Investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker said documents obtained by the U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee last month as part of an ongoing investigation into the origins of COVID-19 raise more questions about what officials at the National Institutes of Health knew about the research they were funding in China.

A Chinese researcher with ties to China’s government and military — and to Dr. Anthony Fauci — mapped the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and submitted it to a U.S. government database in December 2019, two weeks before the virus’ sequence was officially revealed. The delay may have worsened the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, some experts said.

“The extra two weeks could have proved crucial in helping the international medical community pinpoint how COVID-19 spread, develop medical defenses and get started on an eventual vaccine.”

The researcher, Dr. Lili Ren, is affiliated with the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing which, according to a statement by the committee, has ties to the Chinese Community Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army of China. The documents show that Ren was on the payroll of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency overseeing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), directed at the time by Fauci.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nih-payroll-chinese-scientist-lili-ren-mapped-covid-origins/?