COVID-19 Origins: Leak From Wuhan Lab Is Plausible, US Report Says

A report released by a U.S. government national laboratory has suggested that there is a possibility of the COVID-19 virus leaking from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, according to people familiar with the document.

Researchers at the “Z Division” of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California first launched the study into the origins of COVID-19 on May 27, 2020. The researchers drew on genomic analysis of the SARS-COV-2 virus to determine how they evolved and spread among humans.

The study also recommended further inquiry and noted that a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a plausible theory, a person who read the classified document told The Wall Street Journal.

The assessment came after President Joe Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether the COVID-19 virus emerged from human contact or a lab accident.

"I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days," Biden announced in late May. "As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China."

This new report comes after a U.S. intelligence report released last month revealed that three researchers working at the Wuhan lab developed symptoms “consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness” and required hospitalization.

The three researchers were hospitalized more than a month before China announced the first case of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and White House chief medical advisor, called on Chinese officials to publicly release the medical records of the three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“I would like to see the medical records of the three people who are reported to have got sick in 2019," Fauci told the Financial Times. "Did they really get sick, and if so, what did they get sick with?"

A report from the investigation conducted by the World Health Organization said blood samples collected from the Wuhan lab staff members showed they were negative for antibodies. But Marion Koopmans, a virologist on the agency’s investigation team, noted that the workers were tested for antibodies six months after the three researchers were hospitalized.

A study published in February 2021 had shown that coronavirus antibodies decline significantly after six months and may only persist for up to eight months.