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2021-

2021-05-26 f
THE COVID-CON VI

China rejects report of sick staff at Wuhan lab prior to Covid outbreak

Spokesman dismisses Wall Street Journal claims based on ‘previously undisclosed’ intelligence

China has vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence materials that said several members of staff at a key virus laboratory in Wuhan had fallen ill shortly before the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in the city on 8 December 2019.

Foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said it was “completely untrue” that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) became sick in autumn 2019. The report, based on “previously undisclosed” US intelligence, said the lab staff had become sick “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness”.

“The United States continues to hype up the ‘lab-leak’ theory … Does it care about traceability or is it just trying to distract attention?” Zhao said. He also cited a March statement from WIV , in which the institute said it had “never dealt with Sars-CoV-2 before 30 December 2019”.

The Wall Street Journal report came on the eve of a key meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss in detail the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

Separately, CNN reported on Monday, citing people briefed on the intelligence, that the intelligence community “still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with”. “At the end of the day, there is still nothing definitive,” one of the people who has seen the intelligence told CNN. (read more)

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