|
 "I would like to see the medical records of the three people who are
reported to have got sick in 2019. Did they really get sick, and if
so, what did they get sick with?" the report https://on.ft.com/3igFTgU
quoted Fauci as saying about three of the nine.
The origin of the virus is hotly contested, with U.S. intelligence
agencies still examining reports that researchers at a Chinese
virology laboratory in Wuhan were seriously ill in 2019 a month
before the first COVID-19 cases were reported.
However, Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected
the lab leak hypothesis, saying the virus could have been
circulating in other regions before it hit Wuhan and might have even
entered China through imported frozen food shipments or wildlife
trading.
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, declined to
comment directly on whether China would release the records of the
nine but firmly denied that the laboratory was linked to the
outbreak of COVID-19.
[to top of second column] |
 At a regular briefing on
Friday, he referred to a March 23 statement from
the Wuhan Institute of Virology that said no
staff or graduates were confirmed to have
contracted the virus.
Wang reiterated China's position that reports of
a lab leak are a "conspiracy theory."
Financial Times reported that Fauci continues to
believe the virus was first transmitted to
humans through animals, pointing out that even
if the lab researchers did have COVID-19, they
could have contracted the disease from the wider
population.
(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru;
Additional reporting by Cate Cadell in Beijing;
Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)
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