According to current and former officials of the U.S. government, China started stockpiling personal protection equipment (PPE), months before the COVID-19 epidemic.
These damning allegations are based on an analysis by Col. John T. Hoffman and Dr. Tom McGinn.
McGinn is the Senior Health Advisor for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Hoffman is a Senior Fellow at the Food Protection and Defense Institute, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence located at the University of Minnesota. Hoffman was also a U.S. Army veteran, where he was a specialist in anti-terrorism and developed ways to protect military supply chains from terrorist attacks. Hoffman served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Justice.
McGinn and Hoffman did not believe that COVID-19 was caused by the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Also known as the Wuhan Wet Market.
They examined the Customs and Border Protection database which tracks imports to the United States. The duo discovered that China had begun piling up PPE long before China informed the World Health Organization (WHO), about the outbreak on December 31, 2019.
Hoffman stated to the Telegraph that you can look back three years at import data,” “This is not the usual up-and-down that happens.”
McGinn and Hoffman presented their findings at the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office of the Department of Homeland Security. The government agency refused to investigate the matter, claiming that the data was typical of PPE supply fluctuations.
Hoffman believed they were close to uncovering a story-buster and contacted HCA Healthcare, the largest US health system that has 211 hospitals and over 2,000 clinics. HCA Healthcare said that this pattern was very unusual.
A representative from HCA Healthcare revealed that in September 2019, surgical gowns and drapes were so scarce that they were out of stock.
Hoffman stated, “I asked HCA personnel if this has ever happened recently.” They couldn’t recall ever seeing this much back-ordered.
The Telegraph reported that PPE exports to the U.S. dropped by approximately 50 percent between August 2019 and September 2019, a dramatic drop that raised alarm bells at U.S. government agencies. Experts said that China began to purchase global PPE stocks in Europe and Australia around the same period.
David Asher, a former State Department official who studied nuclear biological and chemical weapon proliferation and development issues, declared that the Chinese government was seizing PPE supplies.
Asher stated to the Telegraph that there was a “persistent uptick in Chinese purchasing.” It was so significant that DHS colleagues heard about it from American PPE manufacturers and, most importantly, from U.S hospitals that reported that they couldn’t get the usual supply of masks and gloves, gowns, and goggles.
The report also stated that China, the largest manufacturer of PPE worldwide, began “severely restricting” exports of medical gowns and masks several months before the COVID-19 epidemic.
China hoarded PPE for months prior to the COVID-19 epidemic. This revelation would be more convincing than the wet-market narrative.
