New York Post

February 23, 2020

 

At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future.

A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place "to protect the people's health," Xi said, because lab safety is a "national security" issue.

Xi didn't actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country's bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive entitled: "Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus."