The Unveiling of the RKI Files

Aya Velazquez, who served as the intermediary for the leak, proudly announced at a press conference in Berlin on July 23rd that the documents, known as the "RKI Files," were the complete unedited minutes of the Robert Koch Institute's Covid-19 "Crisis Group." The Robert Koch Institute, a German public health authority, had previously released these minutes in a redacted form.

Discrepancies in the Files

However, German-speaking critics quickly pointed out that the files that Velazquez released were not identical to the official versions, which raised questions about the authenticity of the leak. Entire sections from the official versions were missing from Velazquez's versions. Surprisingly, not only were certain sections missing, but also the entire record of the minutes of the very first meeting of the Crisis Group, which was included in the official release, was absent from Velazquez's leak.

Missing Minutes

On the dedicated website created for the leak, the minutes that Velazquez posted as PDFs in a Zip-folder titled "Minutes_all" (Protokolle_gesamt) begin on 16 January. However, the official minutes start on 14 January. So, the "Minutes_all" folder does not contain all the minutes. When the discrepancies between the official versions and her versions were first pointed out, Velazquez responded by saying that she had assembled the posted PDFs herself from Word documents that her source provided, sometimes in multiple versions. Velazquez, who currently identifies herself as a journalist, was a prostitute until recently. She gained notoriety as an anti-Covid-measure activist and her notoriety has increased as a commentator on X.

Source Files and Missing Information

After responding to the critics, she also posted the Word doc "source files" on the dedicated website for the leak. As of this writing, these source files are not easily accessible, and attempts to open them in Word give rise to error messages. However, according to the file name, the earliest minutes contained in the source doc folder are also those of 16 January 2020. So, the source file folder does not contain the missing minutes either. Where are the minutes of the Crisis Group’s 14 January meeting?

Revealing Document

Fortunately, a Google search using text from the official version turns them up in "supplementary material" (Zusatzmaterial), which was also posted on the dedicated website. This document is very revealing. It shows that the Robert Koch Institute had a direct and highly relevant link to Wuhan right from the start of the Covid-19 "crisis," since an RKI staff member was not only from Wuhan but also a specialist in respiratory illnesses!

Redactions and Unveiled Information

Many observers of the "RKI Files" saga, especially those who do not read German and have not been able to follow its unfolding in real time, may be under the impression that the previously published official versions were heavily redacted. This is not true. While the first versions of the documents obtained by journalist Paul Schreyer in response to an FOI request were more heavily redacted, very few redactions, apart from redactions of names, remained in the versions published on the RKI website in late May. Longer redactions, i.e., of textual passages, are few and far between in the official documents. The 14 January minutes contain one such redaction. The passage reads: "...and regularly reads the texts published in China in Mandarin and shares the information." The file included in the "supplementary material" reveals what was under this redaction. The full sentence reads: "A [female] colleague in FG36 comes from Wuhan and regularly reads the texts published in China in Mandarin and shares the information." FG36 is the institute's "Respiratory Infections" Unit.

Questions Surrounding the Leak

Why was this information redacted in the official release? Why was this document not included in Velazquez's "complete" unredacted minutes? Does this suggest a certain deference – whether on the part of the source or recipient of the leak – to the wishes of the RKI not to call attention to the Berlin-Wuhan axis? The fact that the leak does not include the minutes of three meetings that are also missing from the official release already raised some eyebrows among German-speaking observers and could likewise be construed as a sign of deference. These minutes (those of 6 and 8 January and 9 May 2020) are not even to be found in the "supplementary material."

German and Chinese Virology Circles

The below group photo from a 2015 "Sino-German Symposium on Infectious Diseases" in Berlin provides a graphic illustration of the closeness of the ties between German and Chinese virology circles. Christian Drosten, chair of the virology department at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital and designer of the "gold standard" SARS-CoV-2 PCR test, can be seen in the lower left-hand corner standing next to none other the Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s world-renowned bat coronavirus specialist.

Important Figures in the Photo

The former president of the Robert Koch Institute, Reinhard Burger, was also in attendance. He is the white-haired man with a blue shirt near the middle of the group. The picture was taken at the Kaiserin Friedrich Foundation at 7 Robert Koch Square, just around the corner from the building that houses Drosten’s virology department on the Charité University Hospital campus. The Robert Koch Institute is about a fifteen-minute drive from the campus. The RKI staff member from Wuhan, incidentally, is presumably Wei Cai, who completed a doctorate in Medicine at the Charité University Hospital in September 2021.

Bottom Line

The unveiling of the RKI files has certainly brought to light some intriguing information about the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis and the connections between German and Chinese virology circles. However, the discrepancies and missing information in the leaked files raise questions about their authenticity and the intentions behind the leak. What do you think about this? Please share this article with your friends and join us for the Daily Briefing at 6pm every day.