Evidence that COVID came from a Chinese lab mounted toward a conclusive level last week: “Multiple government sources” say the very first people infected by the bug were Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers, a new report reveals.

More, they were allegedly modifying a close relative of the virus with a key feature unique to it.

The report — by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag, posted on the outlet Public — names Ben Hu, Yu Ping and Yan Zhu as WIV scientists who developed COVID symptoms as early as November 2019, a month before the world even heard of the outbreak, and who now appear to be “patients zero.”

A source said officials were “100%” certain these three were the ones who developed the symptoms.

It’s “a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else,” marvels World Health Organization expert Jamie Metzl. “That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher” in the WIV lab.

Add in all the other evidence — especially the scientists’ gain-of-function work using a close relative of the COVID bug — and it’s now impossible to ignore the extreme likelihood that a leak from the lab sparked the global pandemic behind nearly 7 million deaths and untold economic harm.

source nypost.com