The Biden administration failed to publicly release a congressionally mandated report revealing that seven U.S. service members exhibited COVID-19-like symptoms after participating in the 2019 Wuhan World Military Games, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Report's Disclosure and the Lab Leak Debate
The December 2022 report, required by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to be made public by summer 2022, was quietly uploaded to a Defense Department website in late March 2024, over two years after the legal deadline. The findings contradict public assertions by the Biden administration in 2021 that no evidence existed of American participants contracting the virus during the games.
The report's delayed release has fueled criticism from experts and lawmakers. Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University professor of chemical biology, called the withholding of information an "outrage," noting it aligns with intelligence data suggesting the virus circulated in Wuhan months before China's official December 2019 disclosure. Ebright has long argued that gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, partly funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Dr. Anthony Fauci, "almost certainly caused COVID-19."
International athletes from Germany, France, Italy, and Luxembourg also reported COVID-like symptoms after the games, which were held near the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The World Military Games have been described by Congressional Republicans as "one of the earliest super-spreader events" of the pandemic.
Political Fallout and Transparency Concerns
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) criticized the administration's secrecy, stating the report undermines the theory that COVID-19 originated at a Wuhan wet market in December 2019. "Taxpayers deserve the truth," she said, "but this information was hidden for years."
The Pentagon initially claimed in 2020 that no testing occurred because the games predated the "reported outbreak." However, the newly disclosed report suggests symptoms among service members were documented internally. The Defense Department declined to comment on when it first identified the potential illnesses.
Several U.S. agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and Energy Department, have concluded the pandemic likely originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The delayed release of the military report has reignited debates over transparency in investigating the virus's origins.