Jessica Hockett, PhD
Note: This is a near-verbatim republication of a thread I posted to my now-deactivated and archived Twitter/X account in July 2023. It concerns an email and letter from a Chinese official received by the Illinois governor’s office on 16 March 2020 — the day the federal government announced 15 Days to Slow the Spread. The documents were unexpectedly included in a response to an FOI request concerning testing.
By the time I posted the thread, I already held the view that there had been no pandemic and had been making the case (alone, with, and alongside others) that the excess deaths attributed to COVID were due to iatrogenic causes, testing practices, and coding, classification, and other data games.
I am preserving the documentation below for my own research and that of others. The thread also captures features of what I regarded then, and still regard, as a staged episodes in a constructed event, i.e., the supply-shortage psy-op, theatrical scripts, and political performances used to create and sustain the appearance of a pandemic.
I don’t plan to follow-up on the authenticity of the letter Governor Pritzker’s office received, or to pursue the question of whether other U.S. Governors received similar letters, but would appreciate hearing from anyone else who decides to do so.
Published on Wood House 76 on 1 September 2026. Archived and entered in the Bibliography under 20 July 2023.
20 July 2023
Did every U.S. governor get a letter of encouragement/offer of support like this from a Chinese official in March 2020, or just the Governor of Illinois?
Text of letter:
March 13, 20201
Governor Jay Robert Pritzker
State of Illinois
H.E. Governor Jay Robert Pritzker,
Recently, we have noticed that Covid-19 cases had emerged in the State of Illinois, and a State of Emergency was declared. On this special occasion, on behalf of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People’s Government, and the 73 million Hunanese people, I would like to express my condolences and support to you and to friends in Illinois.
Public health security is a common challenge facing humankind. Under your leadership, Illinois is actively fighting the epidemic. I believe you will be able to overcome this challenge soon and minimize its impact. Recently, by effectively promoting various prevention and control measures, Hunan has strictly implemented the deployment and requirements of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese government, and has always put the people’s lives and health in the first place. The situation here continues to improve, and the recovery of economic and social order is accelerated. Hunan is willing to work together with Illinois by sharing our experience in epidemic prevention and strengthening relevant cooperation, and we will donate a batch of anti-epidemic materials to you.
In September, 2018, I led a delegation to visit Illinois, Hunan and Illinois have signed a Letter of Intent for Sister Province-State Relationship, and have well collaborated in the fields of agriculture, machinery manufacturing, environmental protection, education and culture. Hopefully with your support, the two sides can strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in more fields and at a deeper level, and work together for the benefit of both peoples.
I sincerely wish the State of Illinois an early victory over the epidemic! I wish you and your friends in Illinois good health and good luck! We are with you!
Yours sincerely,
Du Jiahao
Secretary of CPC Hunan Provincial Committee
Chairman of the Standing Committee of Hunan Provincial People’s Congress
Also sent in Chinese:
The letters are dated March 13, 2020, but were sent as attachments in an email to the Governor’s Chief of Staff on March 16, 2020.2
This reads like a “Welcome to the Pandemic” greeting, doesn’t it? Is this a video game?
“You have arrived at the Pandemic Level. Your mission, should you chose to accept it…”
“Good luck!”
If every governor got this letter, it’s a problem.
If only some governors got this letter, it’s a problem.
If only one governor got this letter, it’s a problem.
In my opinion.
It certainly puts this transaction in context, doesn’t it?
“We’ve had to search the entire globe to find what we need. Shipping is very difficult,” Pritzker told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, after his office confirmed the original reports a day earlier.
Hey, what happened to the promise to “donate a batch of anti-epidemic materials to you”? What were those materials?
Reminder that the Pritzker family invested in testing companies.
The letter was written two days after the WHO emergency declaration, but long after Illinois announced its “first” covid cases back in January.
Since Illinois is bigger [more populous], I infer this was sent to multiple governors.
Whatever Governor’s chief of staff said about it is redacted. It would be nice to know if the email/attachments were authenticated.
I had forgotten about this one.
Tangent: Politico‘s February 9, 2020 coverage of the National Governor’s Association 2020 Winter Meeting:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a stark message for the governors gathered in Washington this weekend: The Chinese government is watching them, & other state government officials, more closely than they think.
Pompeo told some 44 governors at the NGA winter meeting that they are being individually analyzed by at least one Chinese government-backed think-tank on how malleable they are, & how prone to cooperate with China.
“Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your state. In fact, I would be surprised if most of you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly.”
The address:
COVID tidbit:
“We can find places to cooperate when our interests converge. You can see that in the first part of the trade deal that President Trump got done, signed last month. We’re happy about that. It was the right thing to do. That was indeed a deal that was good for both the United States and China. And these economic ties are powerful. They’re important and good. They’re good for your state; they’re good for America.
Look at the nearly 18 tons of medical supplies the United States just flew to China this past week to help fight the coronavirus. Yesterday we announced more than $100 million in assistance to China and the countries that are affected by that virus.
And on that note, too, I want to take just a moment to note I want to send my condolences to the loved ones of the United States citizen who fell victim to the coronavirus in Wuhan over the last days.
But, while there are places where we can cooperate, we can’t ignore China’s actions and strategic intentions.”
—Mike Pompeo, 2/9/2020 at NGA Meeting
Anyway, about the letter, which came back in a friend’s FOIA request batch, this guy (or someone by his name) does appear to have been a Chinese politician at some point. I can’t find anything right now about a Chinese delegation visiting Illinois in 9/2018.3
At minimum, the letter appears to be propaganda, regardless of whether it’s authentic or was taken seriously.
Redacting what the Governor’s Chief of Staff [Anne Caprara] said is a bit odd too. Maybe she called BS? I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt on that.
P.S. So, it was from this guy, or from someone posing as this guy.
Illinois apparently bought a bunch of “faulty” masks from China.
Masks don’t stop viruses anyway, but this fiasco was even weirder in retrospect.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza:
“This is what we’ve resorted to these days: It kind of feels like you’re doing a sketchy drug deal on the side of the road when you’re trying to save people’s lives.”
Then there was McCormick Place…4
4/1/2020: “[Illinois] is busy prepping its first COVID-19 field hospital at McCormick Place…
At $125/hour & $187 an hour for OT, nurses could make >$100,000 in just 2 months. The state has waitlisted applicants for the hospital w/~170 already hired.”
21 July 2023
I appreciate the coverage of [my thread and] the email the Governor received in March 2020.
Did Pritzker’s office respond? Did other governors receive similar emails?
It would be nice know.
Adding on to this thread with an email dated March 18, 2020, not long after Governor received the letter from the Hunan official.5
PDF of records received | Original thread
All Wood House 76 articles related to Illinois/Pritzker can be found here.
Other individually or co-authored articles related to topics in this post include US Covid-19 Ventilation Policy: Made in China? | “Should Have Let Us Know” | Did Pritzker Portend His Pandemic Power? | January 2020: The “China is lying about coronavirus cases and deaths” and “China is locking down” psy-ops | COVID Origins Ping-Pong
Footnotes
- The date President Trump signed Proclamation 9994, which declared that the COVID-19 national emergency had begun on 1 March 2020. ↩︎
- The day “15 Days to Slow the Spread” was decreed. ↩︎
- Subsequently found. Contemporaneous Chinese government and Hunan media reports confirm that Du Jiahao led a delegation to Illinois on 11–12 September 2018, met Deputy Governor Leslie Munger, and exchanged a letter of intent concerning a Hunan–Illinois friendship/relationship. https://chicago.china-consulate.gov.cn/lmbf/xw/201809/t20180922_10365632.htm | https://moment.rednet.cn/pc/rednetcms/news/20180922/1425350.html ↩︎
- Tweet in thread posted 21 May 2023. ↩︎
- Original tweet mistakenly said “Wuhan official” ↩︎
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