Back, At The Beginning...

"This was a city of 15 million people that was in lockdown. It was strange, but we were told this was to make it easy for the Games participants to get around."

"[I got] very sick two days after we arrived, with fever, chills, vomiting, insomnia. On our flight to come home [at the end of October], 60 Canadian athletes on the flight were put in isolation [at the back of the plane] for the 12-hour flight. We were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea and in between."

"I was tested for various issues, but never for anything respiratory. A few weeks later, I offered to take an antibody test but was ignored."

Unidentified military source still serving in Canadian Armed Forces

Photo taken on Oct. 27, 2019 shows a view of the closing ceremony of the 7th CISM Military World Games in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. (Photo: Xinhua)

"Given unanswered questions surrounding the origins of the pandemic, information involving the health of service members who participated in the 2019 Games could provide key evidence in understanding when COVID-19 first emerged."

U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher calling for U.S.investigation

 

"One-quarter of us got sick there and when we returned, some were bedridden for weeks. This made us potential vectors for the virus. The military did nothing."

"I was sick and others were too with Wuhan symptoms. ...I was eventually given a swab test, which measures only recent exposure, and told to carry on."

Second unidentified military source serving in Canadian Armed Forces

 

"We are not aware of any CAF members or civilians becoming sick at the Games or after they returned. There have not been any COVID-19 cases identified amongst this group."

"As their stay in Wuhan was well before [the] COVID-19 pandemic was declared and before anyone was aware of the virus, members were not tested upon their return. Testing for COVID-19 was not available in Canada prior to January 2020."

"Once we were aware of potential risks, the CAF and Department of National Defence took immediate precautionary measures to avoid any illness or additional exposure to CAF members related to the novel coronavirus."

Julia Scott, communications adviser, Canadian Forces Health Services public affairs department

The story of the novel coronavirus pandemic keeps deepening, widening, drawing in more studies, becoming more complicated with each passing day. The SARS-CoV-2  virus causing COVID itself is constantly mutating, the focus of health authorities worldwide as breakouts occur and new variants are identified -- along with mutations of variants of concern piggy-backing on variants already tagged as more infectious than the original. As for the original, the role that China played in alerting the world is also questioned and the questions become louder and more persistent day by day.

 

In the United States lawmakers this week called for an investigation into the possibility that the Military World Games that took place in Wuhan, China in October of 2019 turned out to be the first superspreader event that handed the globe a pandemic. Suspicions that officials involved in the arrangements of the event should have been alerted of something amiss when once arrived, the city appeared empty of its population, described by some Game participants as a veritable 'ghost town'. By December of 2019, several months following the Games, the world was aware of a new virus in circulation.

Some members of the Canadian Armed Forces who had taken part in the Games and returned with symptoms linked to COVID feel that military officials failed them, by appearing to ignore both their ill-health symptoms and their complaints involving Wuhan. About 180 military athletes and support personnel from Canada attended the Games, out of a total figure of 9,000 athletes representing 100 countries. China disclosed the presence of a new respiratory virus to the world around the end of December.

Two current members of the Canadian Armed Forces claim the military bureaucracy chose to ignore their symptoms, suggesting Beijing had repressed news of a virus outbreak months in advance of finally admitting the presence of a mysterious new virus that was killing people in Wuhan. One of the military officers who revealed impressions of what he had experienced in Wuhan in October of 2019, spoke of his family members becoming ill, and of his own worsening symptoms; fatigue, nosebleeds, fever and breathing pain.

 

Armed Forces men’s soccer team members salute at the start of a preliminary round match with Qatar for the Council of International Sports for Military 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China, Oct. 16, 2019.  US Dept. of Defense

 

According to The Washington Post, American military leaders at the time dismissed the idea or claimed they had no idea of the situation where U.S. military participants in the Games became ill with COVID-centric symptoms. On January 22, 2020 Canadian servicemen who had taken part in the Wuhan Games received a letter from the Surgeon General that advised it was "not aware of any COVID-19 illness among Games participants"; that "Your individual risk of having been exposed to 2019-nCoV during temporary duty in Wuhan City ... is negligible."

"How did they know? I would have thought the intelligence of medical intelligence community would have tested and followed up on this, but this didn't happen. Athletes were coming back sick from countries, with ongoing symptoms. In Europe, athletes were tested and French, Italian and six Spaniards returned and were positively identified in 2019-20 as having the virus", stated one of the Canadian Forces officers.

Opening Ceremonies - The U.S. Armed Forces team marches during opening ceremonies for the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China, Oct. 18, 2019. Teams from more than 100 countries will compete in dozens of sporting events through Oct. 28.  US Dept.of Defense

And then there is this: "Chinese official who has a history of attacking the United States online has lent a voice to a conspiracy theory that blames American soldiers for bringing COVID-19 to China, though the science does not support that narrative."

"According to the unfounded accusation, which reports say has been widely shared on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was introduced to China when 300 US military members arrived in the Wuhan region for the Military World Games in mid-October and infected the local population. None of the servicemembers who made the trip have tested positive for the virus."

"The rumors seemed to begin when Chinese respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan stated at a February press conference that “though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China,” planting the seeds of doubt."

"On Thursday (March 12), Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, took to Twitter, a social platform banned in China, to ask, “When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"

March 13, 2020, Lisa Winter, The Scientist