Due to the lack of available social media platforms in China and restrictions on internet, all coverage of the U.S. Armed Forces Delegation's participation at the 7th CISM Military World Games will be covered at the following link - https://www.dvidshub.net/feature/2019MilGames

Qualifying Standards for CISM Military World Games - Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil carries the U.S. flag into the opening ceremony of the CISM World Games in Mungyeong, South Korea, Oct. 2, 2015. About 165 athletes and coaches follow behind her. April 26, 2019 - The application period continues for the upcoming Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM) Military World Games hosted in Wuhan, China from October 18-28, 2019. ¹⁾

Inside The Games By Michael Houston - Sunday, 17 May 2020

More athletes have revealed that they fell ill during the Military World Games in October when the Chinese city of Wuhan hosted the event months before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Taking place in October, the allegations came two months before the first identification of COVID-19 by China.

Close to 10,000 competitors competed at the Games from over 100 countries during the nine-day event.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock alleged that she got COVID-19 despite no cases being reported until December.

She said: “After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days.

“I have never felt so sick, either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19, I think it was COVID-19.” ²⁾

Financial Post by Diane Francis - Jun 25, 2021

This week, lawmakers in the United States called for an investigation into whether the October 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China was a COVID-19 super-spreader event and whether officials should have known something was amiss, given that the city seemed unusually empty and was described by some participants as a “ghost town.”

Canada’s Parliament should do the same, according to some Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members who participated in the Games and came back with COVID-like symptoms that military officials seemingly ignored. Canada sent around 180 military athletes and support personnel to the Games, out of a total of 9,000 athletes from 100 countries. ³⁾

The Washington Post By Josh Rogin - June 23, 2021

In October 2019, more than 9,000 international athletes from more than 100 countries traveled to Wuhan, China — and many of them later got sick with covid-19-like symptoms. But there has never been a real investigation into whether the virus that causes covid-19 was already spreading at the Wuhan Military World Games. Now, multiple U.S. lawmakers are demanding the U.S. government begin one.

The Military World Games, which are held every four years, are like the Olympics for military athletes. The games in Wuhan were the largest in the event’s history, and the Chinese government went all out. The U.S. delegation came with 280 athletes and staff representing 17 sports, ranging from wrestling to golf. (Team USA brought home the bronze in the latter competition.) During the two-week event, however, many of the international athletes noticed that something was amiss in the city of Wuhan. Some later described it as a “ghost town.”

As the covid-19 pandemic took hold worldwide in early 2020, athletes from several countries — including France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg — claimed publicly they had contracted what they believed to be covid-19 at the games in Wuhan, based on their symptoms and how their illnesses spread to their loved ones. In Washington, military leaders either dismissed the idea out of hand or weren’t aware of it. Meanwhile, no one performed any antibody testing or disease tracing on these thousands of athletes. No one even attempted to find out whether the games in Wuhan was, in fact, the first international pandemic superspreader event. ⁴⁾

By GT staff reporters - July 30, 2021

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the US to take four steps on COVID-19 origins tracing if it wants to show transparency, including disclosing data on early COVID-19 cases, inviting the World Health Organization (WHO) to probe Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina, and publishing data on sick soldiers who attended the Wuhan Military World Games, amid mounting calls from China and the international community to investigate the US on COVID-19 origins and growing outrage on the Biden administration's political maneuver which severely hampered the global virus tracing task.

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, made the recommendations for Washington at Friday's media briefing. He said that in order to shift responsibility from its failed COVID-19 response and achieve its political goal of smearing other countries, the US has politicized the pandemic, stigmatized the virus, and turned the COVID-19 origins tracing into a tool, and it has taken lying, discrediting and coercion as its means while showing no respect to science and justice.

“You cannot whitewash yourself by smearing others. If the US truly wants to be transparent and responsible, please start with the four things,” Zhao said.

Zhao's recommendations were made as an online petition urging the WHO to investigate the Fort Detrick lab has gained nearly 20 million signatures as of Friday.

A group of Chinese netizens drafted the petition and entrusted the Global Times to post the petition on WeChat and Weibo on July 17 to solicit public response. This week, the petition also opened channels for overseas participants.

Prior to Zhao's four recommendations to the US, several US senators proposed three steps for the US to do on virus origins, and Chinese experts said the two formed a sharp contrast as China offered an advice based on a scientific perspective, and the US clearly weaponized the issue for political purposes of containing China.

Several US senators including Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday asking the administration to take three steps on COVID-19 origins - directing the intelligence community to continue investigating, working with allies and partners to “use all available resources and tools” to pressure Beijing into permitting an investigation in China, and completing a thorough review of existing and prior US government support or funding for research collaboration with China. ⁵⁾

The Canadian military officer was reportedly among the athletes who fell sick after attending the World Military Games in Wuhan, the first epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, in October 2019.

Jan 09, 2022 by Hindustan Times

A Canadian military officer has demanded a proper investigation into the suspected coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Wuhan, fearing he was present at the ‘Ground Zero’ two months before China officially acknowledged, according to a Daily Mail report. The unnamed military officer was reportedly among the athletes who fell sick after attending the World Military Games in Wuhan, China's epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, in October 2019.

“I'm 100 per cent convinced the virus was present in Wuhan when we were there,” the Daily Mail quoted the Canadian officer as saying. “The burden of proof is on the scientific community and intelligence experts to prove – not for athletes.”

The report suggests that a quarantine section was set up on their military flight back home as many from the Canadian contingent were hit by the “mysterious virus”.

A World Health Organization (WHO) team of international experts visited Wuhan in January last year to probe the origin of the virus but failed to conclude how the pandemic began. While the joint report prepared by the WHO and Chinese experts ruled out the possibility of a lab leak as “extremely unlikely”, top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said he was not totally convinced with natural introduction theory.

Since then, there have been several calls for a renewed probe into the origin of Sars-CoV-2, which China has repeatedly rejected.

While the Canadian military officer acknowledged that the debilitating illness athletes suffered from after visiting Wuhan might not be Covid but wondered why everyone seems “reluctant to investigate properly.”

“It feels like we were present at Ground Zero of this pandemic that has had such impact on everyone's life, with millions of deaths and economies shut down, so why not carry out due diligence. Are the facts just too big to handle?” he said, as quoted by the British daily. ⁶⁾