 "Is China using Covid whistleblower’s family to lure her to return to the country?")
When the entire world was reeling under Covid-19, which caused at least 7.1 million deaths and affected over 30 million people globally, only one question was on everyone’s mind: What is the origin of the virus? The first alarm bell rang when a Chinese virologist, Dr Li Meng Yan, made a stunning claim – that China manufactured and released the virus into the world.
Dr Yan based her arguments on the evidence that she sourced, and she eventually gained fame for backing the lab theory. The scientist, who fled to the United States, has been hiding since 2020.
Today, she has severed all ties with her husband, Dr Ranawaka Perera, also a virologist, and her parents. Now, she claims that the Chinese government is using her family to lure her back so that they can “erase the truth”, according to a report in The New York Times (NYT).
This is her story.
Who is Li Meng Yan, the Chinese Covid whistleblower?
Li Meng Yan grew up in the port city of Qingdao in eastern China. Her grandfather, a doctor, inspired her, and she decided to pursue medicine. At first, she wanted to be an ophthalmologist, but later became interested in research.
She specialised in virology and immunology at the Hong Kong School of Public Health and took up a postdoctoral role in stem cell research at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Yan’s interests include investigating infectious diseases and inflammation via different animal models. Her research focused on studying and analysing universal influenza vaccine cross-reactive antibodies and cellular immunology according to the Virtual Keystone Symposia (VKS) website.
Yan met Dr Ranawaka Perera, who is from Sri Lanka, at HKU. He worked as a virologist at a university laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO). The two became friends and got married in 2014. Dr Yan started working in his department after that, NYT reports.
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View AllHow did Dr Yan become a whistleblower?
When the virus broke out, Dr Yan worked at the University of Hong Kong’s laboratory. Her supervisor asked her to look into the outbreak in Wuhan. She followed the instructions and was shocked by the information she gathered.
Dr Yan was told by one doctor that the virus appeared to be transmissible among humans. She also heard rumours about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and started believing in them.
She relayed the information to her senior but was disappointed when he did not act on it. She complained to her husband, who told her to be patient.
As the Chinese government remained mum about the virus and tried to silence whistleblowers, Dr Yan became anxious. She started warning people online and interacting with influencers who were critical of Beijing. She was in touch with Wang Dinggang, a former businessman from China who ran a YouTube channel from the US, and a Beijing critic.
According to Dr Perara, these conversations only made his wife more upset. In mid-April, she received a call from Wang, who claimed the Chinese government was looking to silence her.
Dr Yan panicked and wanted to leave the country. Dr Perara tried to convince her that they would move once they secured jobs at good universities. But one day, she fled, leaving behind nothing but a goodbye note.
NYT reported that Dr Yan’s plane ticket to Washington had been paid for by a foundation tied to President Donald Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, and the exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui.
In July 2020, Dr Yan appeared on Fox News twice, stating, “Her life was in danger, and that she would be disappeared and killed, if she continued to stay in Hong Kong.”
The Covid whistleblower revealed that she was in touch with the US government and even shared all her research work with them. She said that she had “unearthed the pandemic potential of the SARS-CoV-2 and shared her findings with her supervisor Professor Leo Poon Lit-man, who asked her to stay silent.”
She called herself one of the first scientists in the world to study Covid. She claimed that those doctors who were openly discussing the virus suddenly clammed up, and even her colleagues shifted their tones. Dr Yan added, “The doctors said to her. We cannot speak about it, but we need to wear the mask.”
However, Hong Kong University rejected the explosive claim that she worked on SARS-CoV-2 in July 2020. Her former employers released a statement that the virologist was a postdoctoral fellow with limited experience.
But none of that stopped Dr Yan. She became a regular in the Maga media circle in the US and promoted her unproven Covid origin theories.
In a paper published on September 14, 2020, on Zendo, according to a report by BOOM, the whistleblower wrote, “SARS-CoV-2 should be a laboratory product created by using bat coronaviruses” She also listed key reasons supporting that the virus was man-made. However, her University did not allow her to speak about those findings on SARS-CoV-2, Dr Yan accused.
“The whole arc of the story and the counternarrative that we put out about Covid, a lot of it was because of Dr Yan,” Bannon said in a recent interview, reports NYT. “She became a media star.”
Why did Dr Yan cut ties with her family?
When Dr Yan first moved to the US, she kept in touch with her husband and parents. She assured them that she was protected by lawyers and the US administration. She insisted that Dr Perera join her, as she was convinced that the Chinese military had developed the virus.
Her family urged her to reconsider her theory. Dr Perera told her in WhatsApp conversations that her claims would ruin her reputation. He even travelled to New York in July 2020, but his wife did not want to see him. After that, she has not spoken to her husband or her parents.
Is the Chinese govt looking to frame Dr Yan?
Dr Yan now says that Beijing is using her family to lure her back to the country. She told NYT, “For over five years, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has used my parents and her husband as tools to lure me back, attempting to carry out a perfect crime to erase the truth about the virus and avoid accountability.”
In 2023, both Dr Yan and Wang were listed as victims in a criminal complaint that accused Chinese police of running an overseas repression scheme against US residents.
The virologist has also reportedly been targeted by hackers. Google reportedly warned her this year that her account had been attacked in what appeared to be a state-sponsored attempt, reports NYT.
What next for Dr Yan?
She dreamed that she would get a job at a US university or run her lab. However, since she is in hiding, that is not a possibility. She wants to get a divorce, but fears that putting her address on legal records would expose her location.
Unable to work, Dr Yan assists Wang, whom she refers to as her “best friend”, with his broadcasts, the report says. “My basic survival has been possible only because Mr Wang has provided unconditional humanitarian support,” she told the publication.
Meanwhile, all Dr Perara wants is to know that his wife his safe. “If she’s safe, and doesn’t want to be with me, I can move on. But not until I know exactly what happened. She is the person I love the most,” he told NYT.
With inputs from agencies
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