Gravitas Exclusive: Why did Wuhan lab take database of '22,000 virus samples' offline?

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV had released a video of Chinese virus hunters. The video was released on December 10, 2019, around the same time when patients in Wuhan had begun showing pneumonia-like symptoms. The video shows a Chinese scientist on a mission inside a cave filled with horseshoe and pipistrelle bats. What was his man up to? Was this the moment when Chinese researchers scooped up the Wuhan virus? Is this video linked to the pandemic in any way?

We can't say because China doesn't share information. It won't tell the world what these researchers were doing in bat caves. The man leading this team is called Tian. Reports say he worked for the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control or the Wuhan CDC. It is the agency that led China's early pandemic response and I know what some of you may be thinking.

If China had something to hide here, why did they release this video? Which is why we told you to note the date of the release - early December 2019 - that's when the video was released. This was before the pandemic blew up in their face.

It was a different time. China was not under global scrutiny then. Because it wanted to project itself as a leader in viral research, it released a video like this. It wanted to show how dangerous the task to hunt for these viruses is.

Here's what China did not show or tell the world. What did researchers find in these bat caves? When was this virus hunting mission conducted?

Not only will they not answer, but the Wuhan CDC also denies storing any bat coronaviruses before the pandemic and that's hard to believe because in the same video, Tian, the researcher, claims that he visited dozens of caves and studied 300 types of virus vectors.

These inconsistencies are the reason why we need to investigate the lab leak theory further. Last year, the very idea of lab leak was instantly dismissed but now there's a mountain of circumstantial evidence and it's simply too big to ignore.

An investigation by the vanity fair reveals more circumstantial evidence and at the center of everything is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, better known as the Wuhan lab. The piece talks about something called 'Drastic'. It's a group of individuals who are using open source information to find the origins of the virus and this includes scientists and science enthusiasts.

Together they have found a lot of material and papers. They say the Wuhan laboratory was extensively working on bad coronaviruses. They also point out how the SARS virus managed to escape Chinese labs.

Now, these findings are interesting but we cannot independently verify them. What we can say for sure is this - It was premature to dismiss the possibility of a lab leak. It needs to be investigated.

The report focuses on the Wuhan lab. It argues why this lab cannot be given a clean chit just yet. When the pandemic began, American investigators began looking into this lab and they collected classified intelligence that showed how the Wuhan lab was not as safe as advertised.

Apparently, research into coronaviruses was being conducted in less secure laboratories and some of this research involved dealing with sars-like viruses. A delegation of American officials visited the Wuhan laboratory in 2018. They conducted an assessment and they found that there was a shortage of highly trained technicians and clear protocols. And these are lapses that could have threatened the safety of this facility in Wuhan.

Which brings me to Shi Zhengli, the 'Bat Woman' of China. She was overseeing China's research into bat coronaviruses. At every given opportunity, she has denied the possibility of a lab leak. In fact, she "guarantees on her life that the pandemic has nothing to do With the lab".

But rhetorical statements cut noise when seen in the context of facts. China's 'Bat Woman' has a lot of explaining to do here. Reports say the Wuhan lab had access to some 22,000 virus samples and sequences and all of these have now been taken offline.

The WHO investigators saw no problem with this, the fact that these samples were taken offline. The 'Bat Woman' Shi claimed that the database was taken down because of hacking attempts during the pandemic.

One of the investigators said that this was absolutely reasonable and they never really felt the need to ask to see the database. Now Shi claimed that she was protecting her research from hackers during the pandemic.

But here's the thing - the database was actually taken down in September 2019. This was three months before China officially declared an outbreak. This was six months before it was called a pandemic.

Why did they delete the virus database in September 2019? Here's another question that they failed to answer. What is the Wuhan lab's relationship with the Chinese military? Was the Wuhan lab working on projects for the PLA?

We already know that the Chinese military was involved in the lab when the pandemic began. Major General Chen Wei, China's top virologist and biochemical expert had moved to Wuhan with her team. What was an army general doing in a bioresearch lab? 

American intelligence has more inputs. They say that they have reason to believe that Chinese military and civilian researchers were working on "animal research side by side".

Long story short, there are clear inconsistencies in China stories. Now we have Chinese virus hunters caught on video claims of leaky laboratories missing databases on viruses and the presence of the PLA in a bioresearch lab.

Put all of this together and the lab theory starts looking more plausible. It should only be a matter of time before the world pieces together the evidence to hold China accountable and hopefully make china pay.