A report on the origins of COVID-19 by a US government national laboratory concluded that the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the classified document.
The study was prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and was referred by the State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic's origins during the final months of the Trump administration, the report said.
Lawrence Livermore's assessment drew on genomic analysis of the COVID-19 virus, the Journal said.
Lawrence Livermore declined to comment on the Wall Street Journal report.
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The Chinese Embassy in the United States has slammed what it believes are baseless allegations that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab, comparing them with false accusations that suggested Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
ReplyDeleteIn late May, President Joe Biden ordered US intelligence officials to produce a report reexamining the origins of the coronavirus. He said US intelligence community is split between two versions of the virus' origin — it was either transmitted to humans from an animal or came from a lab accident. British intelligence is reportedly also not ruling out the lab leak theory. Commenting on this, Beijing said that scientists, not intelligence services, should be engaged in finding out the origin of COVID-19.
"The origins of COVID19 is a matter of science and should be jointly studied by scientists worldwide, rather than be politicized. Any conclusion must be drawn in line with WHO procedures and following science-base methods. The campaign to politicise the study of origins and smear China is no different from the lies about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 12 years ago," embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu tweeted late on Monday.