THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Report on Wuhan Lab Fuels Covid-19 Debate

Monday, May 24, 2021

ByMichael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel and Drew Hinshaw

WASHINGTON-Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus might have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump ad- ministration, which said several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of corona-viruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 "with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness."

The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization's decision- making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19's origins.

Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.

Another person described the intelligence as stronger. "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," he said, referring to the researchers.

November 2019 is about when many epidemiologists and virologists believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing said the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.

The Wuhan Institute hasn't shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus.

China has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped from one of its labs. On Sunday, China's foreign ministry cited a WHOled team's conclusion, after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, in February, that a lab leak was extremely unlikely. "The U.S. continues to hype the lab leak theory," the foreign ministry said in response to a request for comment by The Wall Street Journal. "Is it actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?"

The Biden administration declined to comment on the intelligence but said all technically credible theories on the origin of the pandemic should be investigated by the WHO and international experts. "We continue to have serious questions about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins within the People's Republic of China," a spokeswoman for the National Security Council said.

"We're not going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the source of SARS-CoV-2," the spokeswoman said. "As a matter of policy we never comment on intelligence issues."

China's National Health Commission and the WIV didn't respond to requests for comment. Shi Zhengli, the top bat coronavirus expert at WIV, has said the virus didn't leak from her laboratories. She told the WHO-led team that traveled to Wuhan this year to investigate the origins of the virus that all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies and there had been no turnover of staff on the coronavirus team.

Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on that team, told NBC News in March that some WIV staff did fall sick in the autumn of 2019, but she attributed that to regular, seasonal sickness.

"There were occasional illnesses because that's normal. There was nothing that stood out," she said. "Maybe one or two. It's certainly not a big, big thing."

David Asher, a former U.S. official who led a State Department task force on the origins of the virus for then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, told a Hudson Institute seminar in March that he doubted that the lab researchers became sick because of the ordinary flu.

"I'm very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in the hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn't have anything to do with the coronavirus," he said, adding that the researchers' illness might represent "the first known cluster" of Covid-19 cases.

Long characterized by skeptics as a conspiracy theory, the hypothesis that the pandemic could have begun with a lab accident has attracted more interest from scientists who have complained about the lack of transparency by Chinese authorities or conclusive proof for the alternate hypothesis: that the virus was contracted by humans from a bat or other infected animal outside a lab.

Many proponents of the lab hypothesis have said that a virus that was carried by an infected bat might have been brought to the lab so that researchers could work on potential vaccines-only to escape.

While the lab hypothesis is being taken more seriously, including by Biden administration officials, the debate is still colored by political tensions, including over how much evidence is needed to sustain the hypothesis.

The State Department fact sheet issued during the Trump administration, which drew on classified intelligence, said that the "U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and seasonal illnesses."

The Jan. 15 fact sheet added that this fact "raises questions about the credibility" of Dr. Shi and criticized Beijing for its "deceit and disinformation" while acknowledging that the U.S. government hasn't determined exactly how the pandemic began.

The Biden administration hasn't disputed any of the assertions in the fact sheet, which current and former officials said was vetted by U.S. intelligence agencies. The fact sheet also covered research activities at the WIV, its alleged cooperation on some projects with the Chinese military and accidents at other Chinese labs.

But one Biden administration official said that by highlighting data that pointed to the lab leak hypothesis, Trump administration officials had sought "to put spin on the ball." Several U.S. officials described the intelligence as "circumstantial," worthy of further exploration but not conclusive on its own.

Asked about the Jan. 15 statement, State Department spokesman Ned Price said: "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 studies of the virus's origins are still colored by political tensions.