US and UK intelligence analysts are reviewing cellphone location data indicating that a high-security Wuhan lab examining the coronaviruses may have been shut down in October, NBC News reported.
The report, obtained by the NBC News Verification unit in London, shows no cellphone activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology between Oct. 7 and Oct. 24, 2019 and says there may have been a “hazardous event” sometime between Oct. 6 and 11. But there is no hard proof either of a shutdown or that the virus mistakenly leaked from the lab.
Were there evidence of a lab shutdown, it would bolster theories alluded to by the Trump Administration and some scientists that the novel coronavirus accidentally came from the lab. Many scientists, as well as the World Health Organization, remain skeptical of the lab theory and still believe it came from the wet market in Wuhan.
It’s thought that the virus originated in China around Nov. 17 but researchers are questioning that date since France’s first documented case was in December.
The analysis was based on commercially available cellphone data. It is not clear who wrote the report, according to NBC.
China has long denied that the virus escaped from a lab.