China accuses US of hyping theory coronavirus escaped from lab

The Wall Street Journal reported that workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had fallen ill in November 2019. - AFP

BEIJING (Bloomberg): China accused the US of promoting theories that the coronavirus escaped from a high-security lab in Wuhan, as a fresh report about sick workers at the facility prompted Beijing to reaffirm denials.

"The report that you mentioned about three people getting sick, that is not true, ” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing Monday (May 24) in Beijing.

Zhao was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that a trio of researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology -- a lab in the central city where the first Covid-19 outbreak was identified -- had fallen ill and sought hospital care in November 2019.