Citing a previously undisclosed United States (US) intelligence report, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report released yesterday claimed that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in November 2019 and had to seek hospital care. This has renewed speculation on whether the novel coronavirus may have leaked from the laboratory.
Earlier this year, the US State Department had reported that US officials had “reason to believe” that several researchers inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology faced “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in the fall of 2019, but it didn’t specify that the researchers were hospitalised or the exact timing of their illnesses.
The new revelation regarding the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits were made public just a day before a scheduled meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), which is expected to discuss the next phase of the investigation into the origin of COVID-19. During its meeting, the body is expected to approve a resolution on the setting up of an intergovernmental working group, which will further discuss the three submitted reports investigating the origins of the global pandemic.
While Beijing says that the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was a man who fell ill on December 8, 2019, many epidemiologists and virologists believe that SARS-CoV-2 first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan around November. The WSJ report quoted an official familiar with the intelligence who said: “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick.”
The Wuhan Institute has avoided sharing data, safety logs, and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which has caused many to speculate that it is the most likely source of the virus. Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, also refuted the WSJ report today and told the Chinese media house Global Times on Monday that “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.”
Beijing has also consistently denied the validity of such claims, which took hold last year when the Trump administration claimed that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying at the time said that the US “doesn’t have any evidence,” adding, “I think this matter should be handed to scientists and medical professionals, and not politicians who lie for their own domestic political ends.”
In fact, following the WHO investigation in Wuhan in January this year, the body itself said that the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated in animals before spreading to humans, and dismissed the notion that it was the product of a lab accident in Wuhan. After conducting multiple interviews with employees and examining the health audit processes of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the WHO team had said that it was improbable that the virus leaked from the lab, stating that it was “very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place,” given the institute’s strong safety controls. “Therefore, [it] is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies,” the mission added.
The new report has forced a deeper investigation into the origin of the deadly virus that has affected 167,534,501 people worldwide and caused 3,478,602 deaths.
Wuhan Lab Researchers Reportedly Sought Medical Care Before China Disclosed COVID-19
A WSJ report has confirmed that lab staff from Wuhan sought medical care months before China disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, refuelling the theory that the virus escaped from a lab.
May 24, 2021
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