CHINA’S brazen claim that the Covid pandemic started in the US “smacks of desperation”, experts have said.  

Viscount Matt Ridley and Lord David Alton have voiced their concerns over the remarkable claims presented in a new White Paper issued by Beijing’s State Council Information Office.

Viscount Matt Ridley, a hereditary peer in the House of Lords and science writer, told The Sun: “It smacks of desperation.

“They sense the pressure mounting – it’s becoming increasingly clear that the irresponsible and pointless experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were the cause.

“The coincidence is bizarre that it should turn up in that city of all places.

“I suspect this is likely a reaction to the webpage. The timing indicates they are unsettled and felt compelled to address the White House.

“It suggests that they have given up on their theory that it got there on frozen food. That used to be their preferred theory.

“I’ve read the brief announcement – it seems to be extremely threadbare. There’s a lot of faulty logic. We know Covid-19 tests can give false positives.”

Lord David Alton, a member of the House of Lords, told The Sun: “When it comes to disinformation the Chinese Communist Party is in a class of its own.

“Over 7 million people died from Covid and millions more have suffered from its consequences.

“All the evidence points to Covid’s origins in China.

“They should be held to account through reparations and not allowed to get away with pedalling falsehoods.”

It comes after The Sun’s explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus’s emergence in Wuhan – home to China’s most secretive bio-research facility.

Just a few days ago, the US unveiled a bombshell new web page on the origins of Covid, blaming the Wuhan Institute of Virology for unleashing the killer virus.

Now, in a fresh propaganda push, Beijing insists “substantial evidence” shows Covid “might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China”.

The document – titled Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China’s Actions and Stance – was released via China’s official Xinhua news agency.

It unashamedly accused the US of “indifference and delayed actions” during the global Covid fight – and of scapegoating China to deflect from its own “mismanaged” response.

It wrote: “The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged COVID-19 response.”

The report added that America was “spreading misinformation” and wasted “precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic”.

It revived Beijing’s long-standing claims that it shared information with the world in a “timely manner”.

The paper added: “The US should not continue to ‘pretend to be deaf and dumb’, but should respond to the legitimate concerns of the international community.”

The Great Covid Cover-up

By Imogen Braddick, Assistant Foreign Editor

FEW of us had heard of the Chinese city of Wuhan when the world was first paralysed by Covid-19 five years ago.

Today, the sprawling metropolis is synonymous with the ­pandemic that claimed 227,000 lives in the UK — along with its sinister labs where top secret biological experiments are ­carried out.

Within the first few days of Britain’s initial lockdown in March 2020, as millions were confined to their homes, questions were already being asked about whether Wuhan’s ­Institute of Virology could be behind the outbreak.

Now, as the country marks the five-year anniversary of Covid-19, an exclusive documentary by The Sun reveals the experts, scientists and investigators who not only believe the virus was caused by a lab leak, but that American scientists helped to cover up the scandal.

Our documentary took me to the heart of the origins of Covid and explores whether China was trying to cover up the creation of a ­biological weapon by blaming the pandemic on a wet food market 17 miles away.

We also reveal that, while scientists publicly insisted the disease came from “natural” sources, behind the scenes they were exchanging messages about a laboratory leak.

One expert told us: “Watergate was nothing compared to this.

“This is the Chernobyl of biology.”

Dr Robert Redfield, the former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that a few months before the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute was taken over by the Chinese military while officials deleted its databases and took on a contract for a new ventilation system.

We now know that three lab researchers fell ill in November 2019 — a month before the first Covid cases were reported to the World Health Organisation.

“I think that’s when the pandemic started,” said Dr Redfield, describing a “frenzied cover-up that was keeping Chinese President Xi Jinping up at night”.

The US virologist says he was “aggressively silenced” when he voiced fears Covid had leaked from the lab, where “Batwoman” scientist Shi Zhengli was carrying out experiments on strains of coronavirus.