Published January 26, 2025 | Version v1
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Information Suppression in the Early COVID-19 Response and the History of Cover-ups in Microbiology

  • 1. ROR icon University of Tsukuba

Abstract (English)

The response of public health agencies to the emergence of COVID-19 was delayed due to their inadequate assessment of the pathogens, which eventually resulted in the worldwide pandemic. From the repeated Freedom of Information Act revelations, it is now clear that some virologists knew as early as January 2020 that SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic, had anomalous features different from those of past zoonotic viruses, such as the insertion of a furin cleavage site, which had never been found in Sarbecoviruses before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, and the receptor binding domain best fit to a human receptor from the onset of the pandemic. Despite this acknowledgment, the virologists did not sound an alarm about the risk of the newly emerging pathogen that appeared extremely infectious as if they had been created artificially in a laboratory to enhance its transmissibility among humans. Had the early covert communications among virologists, after they noticed the anomaly in the sequence of SARS-CoV-2, been made public immediately, public health authorities could have decided to restrict international transportation to contain the virus in late January or early February 2020, which could have saved millions of lives. A fundamental reform to rectify the secretive culture of life science is needed for the prevention and mitigation of future pandemics.

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Created
2025-01-26