Three Wuhan lab scientists were hospitalised just as Covid ripped through city fuelling leak fears, spy report reveals
THREE Wuhan lab staff became sick and needed hospital care weeks before China disclosed the virus outbreak to the world, a bombshell spy report reveals.
Citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report, the Wall Street Journal said the dossier revealed fresh details on the number of researchers affected.
🔵 Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest updates
It also shows the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits in November 2019, when China officially detected the outbreak.
This may add weight to calls for a broader probe of whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, where the pandemic is believed to have begun.
It comes after US top virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci said he was “not convinced” Covid developed naturally and called for a full investigation amid claims of a cover-up.
As of today, there have been more than 3.45 million confirmed deaths attributed to Covid-19 — making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.
The report came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China
Dr Anthony Fauci, White House virus expert
A National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the Journal’s report.
But she said the Biden administration continued to have “serious questions about the earliest days of the pandemic, including its origins within the People’s Republic of China”.
She said: “We’re not going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the source of SARS-CoV-2, but we’ve been clear that sound and technically credible theories should be thoroughly evaluated by international experts.”
The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed a range of views about the strength of the report’s supporting evidence.
One unnamed person is reported saying it needed “further investigation and additional corroboration”.
Yesterday Dr Anthony Fauci admitted he was “not convinced” Covid-19 developed naturally.
At the United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking event, PolitiFact’s Katie Sanders asked Dr Fauci: “There’s a lot of cloudiness around the origins of Covid-19 still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?”
The top doc responded: “No, actually. I am not convinced about that.
“I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened.”
The United States, Norway, Canada, Britain and other countries in March expressed concerns about the WHO-led Covid-19 origins study, and called for further investigation and full access to all pertinent human, animal and other data about the early stages of the outbreak.
The US continues to hype the lab leak theory
China's foreign ministry
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yesterday China’s foreign ministry noted that a WHO-led team had concluded a lab leak was extremely unlikely after a visit to Wuhan in February.
It said: “The US continues to hype the lab leak theory.
“Is it actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?”
The previous Trump administration said it suspected the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab, which Beijing denies.
Earlier this month a group of leading scientists said the possibility of coronavirus accidentally escaping from the Wuhan lab in China “remains viable”.
What do we know about the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
THE WUHAN Institute of Virology is the highest security lab of its kind in all of China - and can be found right at the heart of the origins of the global pandemic.
Various theories have been swirling about the lab, which is headed up by Chinese scientist Dr Shi Zhengli, known as “Bat Woman”.
Most scientists do not believe the virus leaked from the lab, and the lab itself has categorically denied the claims.
The lab specialised in bat-borne viruses and had been carrying out experiences on them since 2015.
Airlocks, full body suits, and chemical showers are required before entering and leaving the lab – the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs are the only places in the world where scientists can study diseases that have no cure.
Scientists from the lab even tested a mysterious virus which killed three miners 1,000 miles away in Yunnan province back in 2012.
It has been suggested this fatal mystery bug may have been the true origin of Covid-19.
Experts at the lab also engineered a new type of hybrid ‘super-virus’ that can infect humans in 2015, according to medical journal
Despite fears surrounding the research, the study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
There is no suggestion the facility’s 2015 work is linked to the pandemic.
The lab was also recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
China has began tightening security around its biolabs with President Xi Jinping saying it was a “national security” issue to improve scientific safety at a meeting last February.
In a letter published in the journal Science, 18 researchers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cambridge blasted the WHO and scientists who followed it for failing to consider that there may have been an “accidental” lab escape.
A WHO task force spent four weeks investigating the outbreak in Wuhan in January and February.
But it concluded it was “extremely unlikely” that it was caused by a lab leak.
