Health Canada finally admits that COVID may have started from a 'lab incident'

Blacklock's Reporter reported that Patricia Hajdu, the former health minister, ridiculed the talk at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years as a 'conspiracy theory,' which led to the acknowledgment.

  • By Alex Dhaliwal
  • July 27, 2023
  • News
Health Canada finally admits that COVID may have started from a 'lab incident'
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang and (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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After three years of projection, Health Canada is willing to accept that COVID started in a Chinese lab, despite not knowing the precise cause.

Canada has long taken China for its word on the likely origin of the respiratory virus. Officials have consistently claimed it originated from human contact with infected mammals at Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

The Origin Of The Covid-19 Pandemic briefing note from Health Canada deemed it "plausible" that either "a domestic animal, a wild animal or a domesticated wild animal" started COVID.

According to Blacklock's Reporter, the June 19 briefing note articulates four possible sources for the pandemic, "including direct zoonotic transmission or a spillover event, introduction through an intermediate host followed by zoonotic transmission or spillover, introduction through the food chain or introduction through a laboratory incident."

"To address the lab hypothesis, it is important to have access to all data and consider scientific best practice," said the note.

"Canada is supportive of all efforts that will contribute to a clear understanding of the origins of the virus," it read, adding their investigations into the matter must be "free from politicization or interference."

Blacklock's Reporter reported that Patricia Hajdu, the former health minister, ridiculed the talk at the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years as a 'conspiracy theory,' which led to the acknowledgment.

"We have to work collectively as a world to defeat this virus," Hadju told reporters on April 2, 2020.

"Do we trust China to provide accurate information?" asked a reporter. "Your question is feeding into the conspiracy theories that many people have been perpetuating on the internet," replied Hajdu. 

"There is no indication the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way."

Health Canada included official data from China in its initial technical updates, only to purge said figures from its public database on June 4, 2020.

"We can confirm China was removed from the global comparison graph as we were comparing Canada with other selected countries that continue to report new cases," said David Wolkowski, spokesperson for the department.

During that period, China claimed 4,645 deaths, a number equal to the average fatalities in Canada's winter flu season, reported Blacklock's Reporter.

However, in its latest submission to the World Health Organization (WHO), they claimed a mere 121,536 COVID deaths, nearly equivalent to the fatalities reported in Spain (121,852) — despite having a significantly higher population.

The first COVID death in China became public knowledge on January 11, 2020. In response, Taiwan restricted travel with China on January 26, followed by the U.S. on January 31. Australia followed suit on February 1, and South Korea on February 24.

"Do you recommend [that] travellers wear masks while visiting China or quarantine-blocked cities such as Wuhan? No," said a January 29 briefing note. "Healthy travellers are not recommended to wear masks while visiting China or quarantine-blocked cities within the country."

Health Canada maintained that Canadians could safely travel to China, with 1,796 travellers from Wuhan arriving in Canada then.

In a February 10, 2020 memo to Hajdu, the department cautioned against sending any "signal to Canadians that the government believes the risk within Canada is changing and other measures are necessary." 

"It will be important to underscore that this is not the case," wrote the staff.

"Minister Hajdu was arguing to keep them open as long as she could from the worst hotspots in the world," said then Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. "She hasn't taken responsibility for that incompetent and dangerous decision."

According to briefing notes, a February 12, 2020 teleconference warned against raising public alarm. "We remain concerned about social anxiety, misinformation and discrimination in the Chinese-Canadian community with the coronavirus."

Kenney said Alberta would not "take lectures" from Hajdu "when it appears that she and her boss, Justin Trudeau, are hell-bent on a federal election campaign."

"If they are that concerned about COVID, why is she getting ready to put up campaign signs?"

As late as March 9, 2020, she received question period notes claiming a pandemic outbreak in Canada was unlikely. "The risk of spread of this virus within Canada continues to remain low."

"We continue to believe that Canada's public health system is well equipped to contain cases coming from abroad, limiting the spread in Canada."

WHO officially declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, with Cabinet invoking the Quarantine Act on March 26 and its first mask mandate on April 20.

 

China Canada COVID Vaccines Health Canada COVID Testing COVID Passports Fight Vaccine Passports Wuhan Institute of Virology news
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