Wuhan lab workers went to the hospital before the Covid-19 virus emerged, the Wall Street Journal says

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing an intelligence report from the United States, that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before the country announced its first cases of Covid-virus. 19.

The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report – which provides new details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits – may support calls for a more comprehensive investigation into whether Covid-19 has survived the disease. laboratory.

The Wall Street Journal said former and current intelligence officials have expressed a variety of opinions about the strength of the evidence supporting the report, and an anonymous person said there was a need for “more investigation and more evidence.”

White House Press Secretary Jane Psaki said on Monday that the United States cannot confirm the Wall Street Journal’s report on the origins of Covid-19 and that it needs more information.

Psaki said the United States hopes the WHO can move forward with a more transparent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The first cases of what will be known as Covid-19 were reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, central China, where the advanced laboratory specializing in coronavirus research is located.

Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected the laboratory leak hypothesis, saying that SARS-CoV-2 may have been spreading to other regions before it reached Wuhan and may have entered China from another country through shipments of imported frozen food or the wildlife trade. .

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday that it was “totally untrue” that three members of the WIV team had contracted the disease.