THREE Wuhan lab researchers became sick and ended up needing hospital care weeks before China disclosed detecting a virus outbreak, a bombshell spy report reveals.
It comes as US top virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci now says he’s “not convinced” Covid developed naturally and calls for a full investigation.
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Citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report, the Wall Street Journal reported the dossier revealed fresh details on the number of researchers affected.
It also shows the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits in November 2019 which 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 the Chinese Hubei Province city of Wuhan where the pandemic is believed to have begun.
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’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
A National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the Journal’s report.
But it 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.
The infectious diseases expert called for an investigation into “what went on in China” as “we need to find out the truth”.
The United States, Norway, Canada, Britain and other countries in March expressed concerns about the WHO-led Covid19 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.
Washington is keen to ensure greater cooperation and transparency by China, according to a source familiar with the effort.
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 in February to the virology institute.
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 Trump administration had 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”.
In a letter published in the journal Science, 18 researchers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cambridge blasted the World Health Organisation (WHO) and scientists who followed it for failing to consider that there may have been an “accidental” lab escape.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is where the case of coronavirus was first detected in December 2019.
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.
