//The study was important because it came from a respected national laboratory and differed from the dominant view in spring 2020 that the virus almost certainly was first transmitted to humans via an infected animal, a former official involved in the State Department inquiry said.
The State Department’s findings, which were vetted by U.S. intelligence agencies, were made public in a Jan. 15 fact sheet that listed a series of circumstantial reasons why the Covid-19 outbreak might have originated as a result of a lab accident. They include the assertion that “the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019” with symptoms that were consistent with Covid-19 or a seasonal flu.//
