Report: US-Commissioned Study Found Coronavirus Could Have Leaked From Chinese Lab
Voice of America
The Wall Street Journal says a report issued by a U.S. government laboratory last year concluded that a theory that the COVID-19 pandemic originated due to a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan is plausible and deserved further investigation.
The classified report, prepared in May 2020 by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, was used by the U.S. State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic’s origins during the final months of the Trump administration. The Journal said Lawrence Livermore has considerable expertise on biological issues, and drew its assessment on genomic analysis of the version of the SARS virus which causes COVID-19. U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered the national intelligence community to investigate the origins of the virus. Intelligence agencies are considering whether COVID-19 was triggered by a laboratory accident or emerged from human contact with an infected animal.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.