{ DR ANTHONY FAUCI } U.S. HEALTH EXPERT
I am not convinced (Covid developed naturally)...I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China
Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before the country reported its first cases of Covid-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. intelligence report.
The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report - which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits - may add weight to calls for a broader investigation into whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.
Refuting the report, however, China has accused the US of hyping the theory that Sars-CoV-2 escaped from a lab in Wuhan. The first cases of what would eventually be known as Covid-19 were reported at the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the laboratory specialising in coronavirus research is located.
The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence expressed a range of views about the strength of the report’s evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed “further investigation and additional corroboration.”
Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected the lab leak hypothesis, saying the virus could have been circulating in other regions before it hit Wuhan, and might have entered China from another country via frozen food shipments or wildlife trading.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a regular news briefing on Monday that the report “is not true”.
“The United States continues to hype up the lab leak theory. Does it care about traceability or is it just trying to distract attention,” Lijian said.
Separately, Yuan Zhiming, director of the lab, told Chinese state media that the report was not correct.
“Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation [sick researchers in autumn 2019], and I don’t even know where such information came from.”
The WSJ story, which was published on Sunday titled “Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on COVID-19 Origin”, came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decisionmaking body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said that the organisation’s technical teams were now deciding on the next steps.