Communist leaders in China's Hubei province began stocking up on PCR tests months before the first reported case of Covid, a report said.
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province. Covid was first detected in Wuhan and many in the scientific and intelligence communities believe the virus likely escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Increased spending on PCR, which is considered the gold standard for detecting Covid, began in May of 2019 and the unusual increase in spending on the tests signals awareness of a new disease spreading in and around Wuhan at that time, according to a report by Australia-based cybersecurity company Internet 2.0.
Monthly procurement data shows a spike in orders in May, especially from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) buyers and the People's Liberation Army.
"We believe the increased spending in May suggests this as the earliest start date for possible infection," the report said.
Orders doubled from universities, jumped five-fold from the CDC and surged tenfold from animal testing bureaus, the report said.
About 67.4 million yuan ($10.5 million at current rates) was spent on PCR tests in Hubei during 2019, nearly double the 2018 total, the report said.
Purchases rose sharply from July through October as well, in particular from the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, which spent 8.92 million yuan on PCR tests in 2019, about eight times its total for the previous year.
The university, along with local hospitals and public health authorities, plays a direct role in responding to outbreaks of new diseases, according to the report.
The involvement of these groups provides evidence that "the increase of purchasing was most likely linked to the emergence of Covid-19 in Hubei Province in 2019," the report said. "We assess with high confidence that the pandemic began much earlier than China informed the [World Health Organization] about Covid-19."
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