US agencies examine reports of early COVID infections in Wuhan

United States officials are calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

United States intelligence agencies are examining reports that researchers at a Chinese virology laboratory were seriously ill in 2019, one month before the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, according to US government sources who cautioned that there is still no proof the disease originated at the lab. A still-classified US intelligence report circulated during former President Donald Trump’s administration alleged that three Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers became so ill in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, sources familiar with US intelligence reporting and analysis told the Reuters news agency. It remained unclear whether these researchers were hospitalised or what their symptoms were, said one of the sources, who all spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.