TNI Bureau: According to a previously unpublished US intelligence study, three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology were ill enough to seek medical treatment in November 2019, bolstering calls for a more thorough investigation into whether the Covid-19 virus escaped from the facility.
The article, according to the newspaper, could add weight to calls for a deeper investigation into whether the COVID-19 virus escaped from the laboratory because it provides new information on the number of researchers involved, the timing of their infections, and their hospital visits.
The report was released on the eve of a session of the World Health Organization’s decision-making board, which is likely to address the next steps of the COVID-19 inquiry.
The Biden administration continues to have “significant concerns regarding the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and its roots within the Peoples Republic of China,” according to a National Security Council spokeswoman.
Current and former officials acquainted with the lab researchers’ intelligence shared a variety of opinions regarding the report’s supporting facts, with one unidentified source suggesting it required “further analysis and additional corroboration.”
The Biden administration continues to have “significant concerns regarding the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and its roots within the Peoples Republic of China,” according to a National Security Council spokeswoman. She stated that the US government was collaborating with the WHO and other member states to facilitate an expert-led investigation into the pandemic’s roots that was ” that is free from interference or politicization.”
In March, the United States, Norway, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries voiced their dissatisfaction with the WHO-led COVID-19 origins report, calling for further analysis and complete access to all relevant human, animal, and other data from the outbreak’s early stages.
Following a visit to the virology institute in February, a WHO-led committee concluded that a lab leak was highly doubtful, according to China’s foreign ministry on Sunday. In response to the Journal’s request for comment, the ministry said, ” The U.S. continues to hype the lab leak theory. Is it actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?”
The virus may have leaked from a Chinese facility, according to the Trump administration, which Beijing denies.
A State Department report released near the end of the Trump administration had said “the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.”