The US intelligence report discovered that the pandemic might have been contracted by three researchers in the Wuhan Lab. The public demands an answer behind the COVID-19 origins.
On May 23, WHO and the US intelligence team received new reports that three researchers from the Wuhan Lab became hospitalized in fall 2019. US intelligence reports state that this could have been the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality,” said an anonymous former official to the WSJ. “It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they [Wuhan researchers] got sick.”
China’s Foreign Ministry claims, however, that the Wuhan Lab researchers had a seasonal illness that did not lead to the source of the coronavirus “leak.”
The director of the Wuhan Lab denied reports on the researcher’s illnesses on Monday and claimed to have never been aware of the situation that occurred at his lab.
“It’s a complete lie,” director Yuan Zhiming told Global Times. “Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don’t even know where such information came from.”
Still, former U.S. official David Asher told WSJ, “I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronavirus would all get sick with influenza that put them in the hospital or severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus.”
In response to this statement, coronavirus expert Shi Zhengli told WSJ that it would be impossible for the virus to have leaked from the lab. After a previous discussion with WHO, she states that none of the sick researchers from her lab tested for COVID-19 antibodies.
Nonetheless, WHO team members state that Chinese authorities refuse to give access to the antibody test samples for proof that the researchers didn’t have the COVID-19 antibody.
It’s been almost two years since COVID-19 emerged, and we still lack the transparency behind the origin of the pandemic.
According to the State Department spokesman Ned Price, “A fact sheet issued by the previous administration on January 15 did not draw any conclusions regarding the origins of the coronavirus. Rather, it focused on the lack of transparency surrounding the origins.”
The Biden administration is continuing to analyze data in hopes of finding the origin behind the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the public will continue to demand transparency on how the pandemic began.
So, did COVID-19 escape the Wuhan lab? There is no definitive answer on whether or not this occurred, but the WHO and White House officials are doing further investigations to settle the pandemic’s origins.