US report: “Wuhan laboratory staff were already hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms before the pandemic broke out”

Three researchers from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan (WIV) were treated in a hospital in November 2019. It was months before China announced the Covid-19 pandemic. This reported the the Wall Street newspaper Sunday. The business newspaper referred to a previously undisclosed US intelligence report.

The report was released on the eve of a meeting of the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO). This meeting is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origin of Covid-19.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council did not comment on the Journal’s report, but said the Biden administration “still has serious questions about the early days of the pandemic, including its origins in the People’s Republic of China “.

She said the US government was working with the WHO to have experts investigated the origins of the pandemic, “without interference or politicization.”

“We are not going to make a statement until an ongoing WHO investigation into the source of SARS-CoV-2, but we have made it clear that sound and technically credible theories must be thoroughly evaluated by international experts,” she declared.

Did you escape the lab?

WSJ argued that the report – which provides new details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illness and their hospital visits – provides a case for the hypothesis laboratory escaped.

But Marion Koopmans, Dutch virologist WHO team, Told NBC News rather that some WIV employees fell ill in the fall of 2019, but attributed it to an ordinary seasonal illness, such as the flu.

“There were occasional illnesses, because it’s normal. There was nothing that stood out, ”she said. “Maybe one or two. It is certainly not a big deal. “

The United States, Norway, Canada, Britain and other countries expressed concern in March over the WHO investigation into the origin of Covid-19. Countries called for further investigation and full access to all relevant human, animal and other data on the early stages of the epidemic.

Distract attention

China’s foreign ministry said a WHO-led team concluded after a visit to the virology institute in February that a leak in the lab was extremely unlikely.

“The United States continues to promote the theory of laboratory leakage,” the ministry said in response to a request for comment from WSJ. “Is he really concerned about the location of the source or is he trying to distract?”

Members of the Trump administration said last year that the virus could have escaped from a Chinese lab, which Beijing denies.

A State Department fact sheet released near the end of Trump’s tenure read: “The US administration has reason to believe that several IPH investigators fell ill in the fall of 2019, before the first case identified from the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. We did not say how many researchers were involved.

Refusal

China has refused to provide data on the first cases of COVID-19, according to a WHO researcher, reported Reuters in February. This can complicate efforts to understand how the epidemic started.