Covid-19: US report finds Wuhan lab leak pinpointed to 2019

A damning new report into the origins of the pandemic has provided a detailed explanation on how the virus may have leaked the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2019.

A damning new report into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic has provided a detailed explanation on how the virus may have leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in September, 2019 — shortly after managers tried to improve air safety and waste treatment processes at the facility.

The report, which is part of a larger study due to be released in September, was authored by Congressional Republicans in the US and also cites what it called “ample evidence” that scientists at the lab were working to genetically modify coronaviruses to make them more dangerous to humans in so-called “gain of function” experiments.

Among the data cited by the report’s authors are open source material including satellite imagery showing a surge in activity at local hospitals, a sudden spike in internet searches relating to what would turn out to be coronavirus symptoms and the removal by officials of the lab’s viral sequence database.

The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

As well, investigators say the fact that a request by lab managers to renovate their hazardous waste treatment systems in July, 2019 — at a cost of $1.5 million when they were just two years old — suggests they were concerned about their ability to prevent dangerous and deadly leaks from the facility.

The report also noted circumstantial evidence pointing to Chinese knowledge that a leak had occurred — including reports that the World Military Games held in Wuhan in October, 2019, were held without fans and that foreign athletes reported at the time seemed to be strange social distancing and temperature testing regimes.

In addition according to the document, Hubei Health Statistics and Information Society vice president Yu Chuanhua attempted to retract media interviews he had given about people becoming ill with Covid-like symptoms in September, 2019.

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Picture: AFP

Most concerningly, the report also looks at whether US government money may have funded the research that ultimately led to the pandemic, and whether Western scientists were involved in a cover-up and attempt to discredit investigations into a lab leak as nothing but conspiracy theories.

“As we continue to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe it’s time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source of the outbreak,” said Rep. Mike McCaul of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Instead, as this report lays out, a preponderance of the evidence proves that all roads lead to the WIV.

“We know gain-of-function research was happening at the WIV and we know it was being done in unsafe conditions.”

Originally published as Covid-19: US report finds Wuhan lab leak pinpointed to 2019