New intelligence report reactivates hypothesis that coronavirus came out of lab

In November 2019, months before China revealed the existence of the coronavirus, three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought treatment in a hospital “with symptoms compatible with both Covid-19 as with the common seasonal disease, “the The Wall Street Journal.

The daily cit an American intelligence report that had not been revealed before, and that it details the number of researchers affected, the dates of their illness and their hospital visits.

According to WSJ, this report will add pressure to existing calls for further investigation than has been done so far. on the question of whether the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 could have escaped from the WIV laboratory.

The report is known on the eve of a meeting of the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not comment on the report but said the president’s government Joe Biden continues to have “serious doubts about the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins in the People’s Republic of China.”

He added that the United States government was working with the WHO and other member states to support an assessment of the origins of the pandemic led by experts “which is free from interference or politicization.”

Last March, the United States, Norway, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries expressed concern over the WHO study on the origins of Covid-19, and called for a further investigation and full access to all relevant human data. , animals and others on the early stages of the epidemic.

China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated today that a WHO-led team concluded that a laboratory leak was extremely unlikely after a visit to the institute of virology in February.

“The United States continues to exaggerate the theory of a laboratory leak,” the ministry said in response to a request for comment from the WSJ. “Are you really worried about finding the source or are you trying to distract?”

The Donald Trump administration had said it suspected that the virus could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory, which Beijing has always denied. China has refused to give raw data on the first cases of COVID-19 to the WHO-led team investigating the origins of the pandemic, one of the team’s researchers reported. Reuters in February, which could complicate efforts to understand how the outbreak began.