A report on the origins of COVID-19 by a US government national laboratory concluded that the hypothesis of a virus leak from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday, citing people familiar with the classified document.
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The study was prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and was referred to by the State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic's origins during the final months of the Trump administration, the Wall Street Journal report said.
Lawrence Livermore's assessment drew on a genomic analysis of the COVID-19 virus, the Wall Street Journal said.
US President Joe Biden said last month he had ordered aides to find answers to the origin of the virus.
US intelligence agencies are considering two likely scenarios – that the virus resulted from a laboratory accident or that it emerged from human contact with an infected animal – but they have not come to a conclusion, Biden said.
A still-classified US intelligence report circulated during former President Donald Trump's administration alleged that three researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became so ill in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, US government sources have said.
US officials have accused China of not being transparent about the virus' origins, a charge Beijing has denied.
Separately, Mike Ryan, a top World Health Organization official said on Monday the WHO cannot compel China to divulge more data on COVID-19's origins, while adding it will propose studies needed to take understanding of where the virus emerged to the "next level."
Last week, Biden's pandemic adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN: "I still believe the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human, but I keep an absolutely open mind that if there may be other origins of that, there may be another reason, it could have been a lab leak.
Fauci has been pilloried by conservative lawmakers and media outlets as a liar who misled the American people about the origins of COVID-19 to protect the Chinese government. Republican calls for his resignation have grown louder, as have demands for new investigations into the origins of the virus.
"Given what we know now, I don't know how anyone can have confidence that he should remain in a position of public trust and authority," said Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential presidential hopeful who is calling for Fauci's resignation and a full congressional inquiry.
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