Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? Studies, records and assessments (2002 to 2026)
As of 2026-10-06. Times are UTC; most events are known to the day, month or year only. Disputed dates are drawn with a ring at the other date and tagged disputed; they are not resolved here. Government, committee and WHO statements are adoption, not evidence. Events marked single rest on one source; several rest on press reports or documents that were not read and say so. SARS events (2002 to 2005) are orienting background only and lend no weight to any claim about SARS-CoV-2. On the map, events with a place are shown on the Atlas map as dots only. A pin marks where a source says something was observed, sampled or reported, never where the virus originated; first detections outside China partly show where screening and testing were in place; the locations of early cases are disputed and are not mapped.
Shape = kind of source: machine-recorded data a primary document an official statement a person's account a scholar's account a news report Style = status: 2+ sources agree one source sources differ our inference / time not reported the same event at another source's time Every dot is a link to its main source; the table lists all sources.
Panel A: Nov 2002 to Nov 2019 (one tick per two years)
Click a dot to open its source. Scroll sideways on a phone.
Panel B: Dec 2019 to Mar 2020 (one tick per two weeks)
Click a dot to open its source. Scroll sideways on a phone.
Panel C: Apr 2020 to Oct 2026 (one tick per year)
Click a dot to open its source. Scroll sideways on a phone.
Events (numbers match the diagram)
| # | When (UTC) | What | Status | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16 Nov 2002 (date only) | 16 Nov 2002: start of the period for which CDC counts 31 SARS deaths in Guangdong The CDC bulletin says 31 deaths occurred in Guangdong province between 16 November 2002 and 28 February 2003; it is the start of that counting window, not stated as the first onset. Background: a different virus. | reported data | src-cdc-mmwr-sars-2003 |
| 2 | 11 Feb 2003 (date only) | 11 Feb 2003: WHO receives reports of an outbreak in Guangdong "an outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome with 300 cases and 5 deaths in Guangdong Province". | reported official | src-who-don-2003-02-11 |
| 3 | 12 Mar 2003 (date only) | 12 Mar 2003: WHO global alert on atypical pneumonia Reports of a severe pneumonia in Viet Nam, Hong Kong and Guangdong. | reported official | src-who-sars-alert-2003 |
| 4 | 01 Apr 2003 (date only) | Apr 2003: first papers name a novel coronavirus as the SARS agent Europe PMC first-publication dates: 1 Apr 2003 (Peiris et al., Lancet) and 10 Apr 2003 (Drosten et al. and Ksiazek et al., NEJM). Different papers, not a conflict over one date. Other-source time: 10 Apr 2003: NEJM papers (Europe PMC first-publication date) | disputed analysis | src-epmc-sars-abstracts |
| 5 | 05 Jul 2003 (date only) | 5 Jul 2003: WHO says SARS outbreak contained worldwide "the human chains of SARS virus transmission appear to have been broken everywhere in the world". | reported official | src-who-sars-contained-2003 |
| 6 | 21 Aug 2003 (date only) | 21 Aug 2003: WHO, China and FAO mission on the SARS animal reservoir "Finding its origin will most likely take years". | reported official | src-who-sars-mission-2003 |
| 7 | 04 Sep 2003 (date only) | 4 Sep 2003: SARS-like viruses isolated from civets in a Guangdong live-animal market Europe PMC first-publication date of the Science paper. Background only; this is a different virus and lends no weight to the SARS-CoV-2 claims (thread-sars-2003-background). | reported analysis | src-epmc-sars-abstracts |
| 8 | 27 Sep 2005 (date only) | Sep 2005: bats identified as SARS-like coronavirus reservoirs PNAS print date 27 Sep 2005 and Science 29 Sep 2005. Background only. | reported analysis | src-lau-2005, src-epmc-sars-abstracts |
| 9 | 26 Apr 2012 (date only) | 26-27 Apr 2012: four miners admitted to a Kunming hospital (as described in WIV's 2020 addendum) WIV says it received 13 serum samples from four patients between 1 July and 1 October 2012 and retested them in 2020, confirming they were not infected by SARS-CoV-2. The addendum does not link this to RaTG13. | reported witness | src-zhou-2020-addendum |
| 10 | 24 Jul 2013 (date only) | 24 Jul 2013 (GenBank collection date): bat coronavirus RaTG13 sample, Yunnan Collection date is the submitter's GenBank entry; the Nature paper gives no collection year; the addendum discusses 2012 sera and does not name RaTG13; SAGO gives 2013 in one place and another chronology that is not in the addendum text. Dispute shown, not resolved. | disputed data | src-genbank-ratg13, src-zhou-2020-addendum, src-sago-2025 |
| 11 | 30 Oct 2013 (date only) | 30 Oct 2013: WIV-led team isolates a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses human ACE2 Nature; with EcoHealth Alliance authors. | reported analysis | src-ge-2013 |
| 12 | 27 May 2014 (date only) | 27 May 2014: NIH/NIAID awards grant R01AI110964 to EcoHealth Alliance "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence"; start 1 Jun 2014; WIV a participant. HHS 2024 memorandum. Several different end dates appear across the records. | reported official | src-hhs-eha-suspension-2024 |
| 13 | 17 Oct 2014 (date only) | 17 Oct 2014: US funding pause on gain-of-function research (as described by HHS in 2024) Described in the 2024 memorandum; the pause document itself was not read. | reported official | src-hhs-eha-suspension-2024 |
| 14 | 09 Nov 2015 (date only) | 9 Nov 2015: chimeric SHC014-spike virus in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone (UNC) A UNC paper, not a WIV paper. | reported analysis | src-menachery-2015 |
| 15 | 28 May 2016 (date only) | 28 May 2016: NIAID writes to EcoHealth about possible gain-of-function research under the grant (as recorded by HHS) The 2016 letter itself was not read. | single official | src-hhs-eha-suspension-2024 |
| 16 | 30 Nov 2017 (date only) | 30 Nov 2017: WIV paper on bat SARS-related coronaviruses and chimeric viruses Received 10 Feb, accepted 17 Oct 2017. | reported analysis | src-hu-2017 |
| 17 | 08 Feb 2018 (date only) | 8 Feb 2018: first rough draft of the DEFUSE abstract emailed (FOIA release; unvetted) From USGS FOIA release 2021-006245, OCR text; released publicly Dec 2023 to Jan 2024. | single document | src-defuse-drafts |
| 18 | 24 Mar 2018 (date only) | 24 Mar 2018: EcoHealth Alliance submits the DEFUSE proposal to DARPA Cover letter dated 24 March 2018; the form field says "Date proposal submitted: 3/27/18". The final proposal was public from Sept 2021. Not funded according to the sources read; DARPA's record not read. Other-source time: Form field "Date proposal submitted: 3/27/18" | disputed document | src-defuse |
| 19 | 12 Sep 2019 (date only) | 12 Sep 2019 (claimed): WIV online database taken offline. NOT VERIFIED Claim in the HELP minority staff report, resting on a volunteer-group report and a newspaper editorial that were not opened; no archive capture found (co-sq-wiv-database). | single witness | src-senate-help-2022 |
| 20 | 15 Oct 2019 12:00 to 30 Nov 2019 00:00 | Autumn 2019: several WIV researchers reported ill (official wording) The US State Department fact sheet of 15 Jan 2021 says several researchers inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in autumn 2019 with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses; the ODNI report of June 2023 says this information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis. Neither gives names or dates; the range drawn is a placeholder for 'autumn'. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | reported official | n:covid-2019-autumn-wiv-researchers-ill:0, n:covid-2019-autumn-wiv-researchers-ill:1 |
| 21 | 18 Nov 2019 12:00 (approx.) | about 18 Nov 2019 (modelled): lineage B primary infection, 95 percent range 23 Oct to 8 Dec (as published) A model output, not an observed date. The 2023 erratum was not read; two critics say it changed the support for two introductions. | inferred analysis | src-pekar-2022 |
| 22 | 01 Dec 2019 (date only) | Earliest known case: 1 Dec or 8 Dec 2019 onset (sources differ) 1 Dec: onset of the first patient in a Lancet series, "No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later cases". 8 Dec: earliest onset reported in the WHO-China report, with no Huanan exposure. They may or may not be one person; the sources do not say. Other-source time: 8 Dec 2019: earliest onset reported to the national surveillance system (WHO-China report) | disputed data | src-huang-2020, src-who-china-2021 |
| 23 | 10 Dec 2019 (date only) | 10 Dec 2019: onset of the earliest "unambiguous" case in Pekar et al., a seafood vendor No published genome. Differs from the 1 and 8 Dec dates above because it is a different case definition. | single data | src-pekar-2022 |
| 24 | 12 Dec 2019 (date only) | 12 Dec 2019: "the first patient was hospitalized" (Wu et al., Nature) A hospitalisation date, not an onset date. | reported data | src-wu-2020 |
| 25 | 31 Dec 2019 (date only) | 31 Dec 2019: Wuhan Municipal Health Commission notice on pneumonia cases The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission's notice (page timestamp 13:38:05, time zone not stated) reports 27 cases of pneumonia, 7 severe, and says no obvious human-to-human transmission had been found (Chinese original read). A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | single official | n:covid-2019-12-31-wuhan-health-commission-notice:0 |
| 26 | 31 Dec 2019 (date only) | 31 Dec 2019: WHO China office informed of pneumonia of unknown cause WHO says its China Country Office "was informed"; the Worobey paper says the Chinese government notified WHO. A local public notice is not a notification to WHO. | disputed official | src-who-don-2020-01-05, src-who-don-2020-01-12 |
| 27 | 01 Jan 2020 (date only) | 1 Jan 2020: Huanan market closed (per media reports cited by WHO) WHO's Disease Outbreak News of 5 Jan 2020 says, citing media reports, that the market was closed on 1 January 2020. No Chinese government closure notice was read. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | single official | n:covid-2020-01-01-huanan-market-closed:0 |
| 28 | 01 Jan 2020 12:00 to 02 Mar 2020 23:59 | 1 Jan to 2 Mar 2020: China CDC samples the Huanan market (74 of 923 environmental samples positive) Liu et al. (China CDC, Nature 2023) report environmental sampling in and around the market from 1 January to 2 March 2020; animal sampling began on 18 January, and some stray animals were sampled until 30 March; 74 of 923 environmental samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and of the 64 positives collected inside the market, 56 were in its West Zone. What this pattern means for the origin is disputed in this dig; this node records only where and when the samples were taken. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. Sampling dates and counts from Liu et al. (China CDC). Whether the West Zone pattern points to an animal source or to where infected people went is argued in co-market-samples and co-wildlife-dna-co-occurrence; the map shows only where samples were taken. | single data | n:covid-2020-01-01-china-cdc-market-sampling:0 |
| 29 | 05 Jan 2020 (date only) | 5 Jan 2020: WHO Disease Outbreak News, 44 patients as of 3 Jan "no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported". | reported official | src-who-don-2020-01-05 |
| 30 | 05 Jan 2020 (date only) | 5 Jan 2020: genome MN908947 submitted to GenBank by China CDC The record shows submission 5 Jan, release 12 Jan (v1), a revision 14 Jan and a later version listing a Shanghai centre as submitter. | single data | src-genbank-wh1 |
| 31 | 08 Jan 2020 (date only) | 8 Jan 2020: traveller from Wuhan detected by thermal screening at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport (positive for coronaviruses by RT-PCR 12 Jan) WHO's Disease Outbreak News of 14 Jan 2020: a 61-year-old woman living in Wuhan, with fever from 5 January, flew directly from Wuhan to Thailand on 8 January, was detected the same day by thermal surveillance at Suvarnabhumi Airport and hospitalized; samples tested positive for coronaviruses by RT-PCR on 12 January (the notice gives no date for identifying the novel virus). The first case reported outside China. A first detection partly shows where screening and testing were in place. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. The first case reported outside China. Different from ev-who-thailand, which is WHO's statement about it. | single official | n:covid-2020-01-08-thailand-traveller-detected-bkk:0 |
| 32 | 09 Jan 2020 (date only) | 9 Jan 2020: WHO says Chinese authorities report a preliminary novel coronavirus "a preliminary determination of a novel (or new) coronavirus". | reported official | src-who-stmt-2020-01-09 |
| 33 | 10 Jan 2020 (date only) | When the genome became public: 5, 10, 11, 12 or 14 Jan 2020 (different events) 5 Jan submission; 10 Jan text of the Virological post (timestamp 11 Jan 01:05 UTC); 12 Jan WHO says China shared the sequence and GenBank v1 release; 14 Jan GenBank v2. Each source dates a different event. Other-source time: 12 Jan 2020: WHO DON and GenBank v1 release date | disputed data | src-virological-319, src-genbank-wh1, src-who-don-2020-01-12 |
| 34 | 12 Jan 2020 (date only) | WHO statement on novel coronavirus in Thailand: 12 or 13 Jan 2020 URL slug says 12 Jan; page title and canonical link say 13 Jan. Other-source time: 13 Jan 2020: page title and canonical link | disputed official | src-who-thailand-2020 |
| 35 | 16 Jan 2020 (date only) | 16 Jan 2020: Japan reports a confirmed case in a person who had travelled to Wuhan (place in Japan not stated) WHO's Disease Outbreak News of 16 Jan 2020: Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare informed WHO of a confirmed case in a person who travelled to Wuhan. The notice does not say where in Japan. A first detection partly shows where screening and testing were in place. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | single official | n:covid-2020-01-16-japan-case-reported:0 |
| 36 | 19 Jan 2020 (date only) | 19 Jan 2020: traveller from Wuhan detected with fever at Incheon International Airport (confirmed 20 Jan) WHO's Disease Outbreak News of 21 Jan 2020: a 35-year-old woman from Wuhan, ill from 18 January while in Wuhan, was detected with fever on arrival at Incheon International Airport on 19 January, isolated, and tested positive on 20 January (Korea CDC). A first detection partly shows where screening and testing were in place. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | single official | n:covid-2020-01-19-korea-traveller-detected-icn:0 |
| 37 | 21 Jan 2020 (date only) | 21 Jan 2020: CDC announces the first US case, in Washington State (returned from Wuhan 15 Jan) CDC press release of 21 Jan 2020: a patient in the state of Washington, who returned from Wuhan on 15 January, has confirmed infection. The release names the state only. A first detection partly shows where screening and testing were in place. A map pin marks where this source says something was observed, sampled or reported. It is not a claim about where the virus originated. | single official | n:covid-2020-01-21-us-case-washington:0 |
| 38 | 27 Jan 2020 (date only) | 27 Jan 2020: RaTG13 genome submitted to GenBank (submitter listed: CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens, Wuhan Institute of Virology) The GenBank record for version 1 is dated 24 Mar 2020; its comment says version 2 replaced it on 13 Oct 2020. | single data | src-genbank-ratg13 |
| 39 | 30 Jan 2020 (date only) | 30 Jan 2020: WHO declares a public health emergency of international concern "the outbreak now meets the criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern". | reported official | src-who-pheic-2020 |
| 40 | 03 Feb 2020 (date only) | 3 Feb 2020: Zhou et al. report RaTG13, 96.2 percent identical to SARS-CoV-2 Received 20 Jan, accepted 29 Jan 2020. The text gives no collection year for RaTG13. | reported analysis | src-zhou-2020-ratg13 |
| 41 | 20 Feb 2020 12:00 to 24 Feb 2020 23:59 | 16-24 Feb 2020: WHO-China joint mission on COVID-19 Report: bats appear to be the reservoir; the intermediate host had not been identified. | reported official | src-who-china-mission-2020 |
| 42 | 11 Mar 2020 (date only) | 11 Mar 2020: WHO characterises COVID-19 as a pandemic Director-General remarks. | reported official | src-who-dg-2020-pandemic |
| 43 | 17 Mar 2020 (date only) | The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2: published 17 Mar 2020 (preprint post stamped 16 Feb) The Virological post carries a 16 Feb 2020 timestamp but links the published paper, so it was edited after posting or the stamp is that of the first post. Other-source time: 16 Feb 2020: Virological post timestamp | disputed analysis | src-andersen-2020, src-virological-398 |
| 44 | 24 Apr 2020 (date only) | 24 Apr 2020: NIH notifies EcoHealth it is terminating grant R01AI110964 As described in the HHS 2024 memorandum; the letter was not read. The HHS-OIG audit later called the termination improper (src-oig-2023). | single official | src-hhs-eha-suspension-2024 |
| 45 | 11 Jun 2020 (date only) | 11 Jun 2020: private Slack messages among Proximal Origin authors (released July 2026) Unchecked source: chairman-selected release, no independent capture. See co-proximal-origin-private-messages. | single document | src-hsgac-slack-2026 |
| 46 | 08 Jul 2020 (date only) | 8 Jul 2020: NIH withdraws the termination and suspends the grant "effective the date of this letter, July 8, 2020, NIH is suspending all activities related to R01AI110964". | reported official | src-nih-letter-2020-07-08 |
| 47 | 17 Nov 2020 (date only) | 17 Nov 2020: WIV addendum on four Mojiang miners' sera Retested sera were not infected by SARS-CoV-2. | reported analysis | src-zhou-2020-addendum |
| 48 | 14 Jan 2021 12:00 to 10 Feb 2021 23:59 | 14 Jan-10 Feb 2021: WHO-convened team in China Joint WHO-China study. | reported official | src-who-china-2021 |
| 49 | 15 Jan 2021 (date only) | 15 Jan 2021: US State Department fact sheet on activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Says the US "does not know exactly where, when, or how" the virus was transmitted to humans and has "not determined" whether it began through animals or a laboratory accident; also the autumn 2019 illness statement. | reported official | src-state-wiv-factsheet-2021 |
| 50 | 30 Mar 2021 (date only) | 30 Mar 2021: WHO-China joint report released; updated 6 Apr 2021 Two different PDFs exist under WHO URLs. The Director-General said the laboratory assessment "was not extensive enough". Other-source time: 6 Apr 2021: updated report (working note removed, a name corrected) | disputed official | src-who-china-2021, src-who-dg-remarks-2021 |
| 51 | 30 Mar 2021 (date only) | 30 or 31 Mar 2021: 14 governments express concern about the WHO-convened study State and Canada copies are dated 30 March; the Japan copy 31 March (time zone or posting date). Other-source time: 31 Mar 2021: Japan MOFA copy | disputed official | src-state-joint-statement-2021, src-joint-statement-canada-2021, src-joint-statement-japan-2021 |
| 52 | 26 May 2021 (date only) | 26 May 2021: President orders a 90-day Intelligence Community review "report back to me in 90 days". | reported official | src-biden-2021-05-26 |
| 53 | 16 Aug 2021 (date only) | 16 Aug 2021: Bloom recovers deleted early Wuhan sequencing data (online; print issue Dec 2021) Mol Biol Evol 38(12), epub 16 Aug 2021. A 2023 correction exists and was not read. | reported analysis | src-bloom-2021 |
| 54 | 27 Aug 2021 (date only) | 27 Aug 2021: ODNI unclassified summary; longer Updated Assessment (October 2021 per file metadata) The IC "remains divided". The longer assessment has no printed date; file metadata gives 29 Oct 2021 and SAGO also says October 2021. Other-source time: 29 Oct 2021: PDF metadata of the longer assessment (not a printed date) | disputed official | src-odni-2021-summary, src-odni-2021-updated |
| 55 | 26 Sep 2021 (date only) | Sep 2021: final DEFUSE proposal made public (posted by a volunteer group; Internet Archive item dated 26 Sep 2021) The drafts were released later, by FOIA, in Dec 2023 to Jan 2024. | reported document | src-defuse |
| 56 | 16 Feb 2022 (date only) | 16 Feb 2022: Laos bat viruses with RBDs close to SARS-CoV-2 (BANAL-52, 96.8 percent) "None of these bat viruses contains a furin cleavage site". | reported analysis | src-temmam-2022 |
| 57 | 26 Jul 2022 (date only) | 26 Jul 2022: Science publishes Worobey et al. (market epicentre) and Pekar et al. (two lineages) Both later corrected (14 Mar 2024 and 13 Oct 2023); the errata were not read. | reported analysis | src-worobey-2022, src-pekar-2022 |
| 58 | 19 Aug 2022 (date only) | 19 Aug 2022: NIH terminates the WIV subaward for material non-compliance Letter in a House Oversight production. | reported official | src-nih-eha-2022-08-19 |
| 59 | Oct 2022 (month only) | Oct 2022: Senate HELP minority staff interim report; ASM replies 28 Oct "more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident"; "not intended to be dispositive". | reported official | src-senate-help-2022, src-asm-2022 |
| 60 | Jan 2023 (month only) | Jan 2023: HHS Office of Inspector General audit A-05-21-00025 Dated January 2023; read for the date and a phrase only. | reported official | src-oig-2023 |
| 61 | 28 Feb 2023 (date only) | Feb 2023: FBI Director and a DOE report make lab-incident assessments public (by press) FBI Director quoted 28 Feb 2023; DOE report reported by the Wall Street Journal on 26 Feb (via NPR). The House report says February and March 2023. No FBI or DOE document was read. | reported official | src-cnn-wray-2023, src-npr-doe-2023 |
| 62 | 18 Mar 2023 (date only) | 18 Mar 2023: SAGO statement on China CDC market data briefly on GISAID (posted 12 Mar) Data were available "for a short period of time". | reported official | src-sago-statement-2023 |
| 63 | 05 Apr 2023 (date only) | 5 Apr 2023: China CDC market surveillance paper (74 of 923 samples positive) Version of record 12 Jun 2024; the preview said 73. | reported analysis | src-liu-2023 |
| 64 | 17 Apr 2023 (date only) | 17 Apr 2023: Sen. Marshall office releases "Muddy Waters" executive summary An office product, not a committee report. | reported official | src-marshall-2023 |
| 65 | 23 Jun 2023 (date only) | 23 Jun 2023: ODNI declassifies report on the WIV and the origins of COVID-19 No indication WIV held SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor; agencies split; confidence levels redacted. | reported official | src-odni-2023-wiv |
| 66 | 11 Jul 2023 (date only) | 11 Jul 2023: House hearing on the Proximal Origin paper Written testimony and transcript read; members' quotations of Jan-Feb 2020 messages not compared with originals. | reported witness | src-house-proximal-hearing-2023, src-andersen-testimony-2023 |
| 67 | 24 Aug 2023 (date only) | 24 Aug 2023: Bloom analysis of market sample metagenomics Co-mingling of animal and viral material "is unlikely to reliably indicate whether any animals were infected". | reported analysis | src-bloom-2023 |
| 68 | 19 Sep 2023 (date only) | 19 Sep 2023: HHS debars the Wuhan Institute of Virology for ten years (as summarised in the EHA memorandum) The WIV notice itself was not read. | single official | src-hhs-eha-arm-2025 |
| 69 | 13 Oct 2023 (date only) | 13 Oct 2023: Science erratum to Pekar et al. Content not read; two critics say the Bayes factor fell from about 60 to about 4 (McCowan) or 4.3 (Weissman). | reported analysis | src-pekar-erratum-record, src-mccowan-2025 |
| 70 | 16 Jan 2024 (date only) | 16 Jan 2024: Stoyan and Chiu critique of the Worobey spatial analysis (JRSSA) Published version not read; arXiv v2 read. | reported analysis | src-stoyan-chiu-2023 |
| 71 | 14 Mar 2024 (date only) | 14 Mar 2024: Science erratum to Worobey et al. Content not read. | reported analysis | src-worobey-erratum-record |
| 72 | 20 Mar 2024 (date only) | 20 Mar 2024: Weissman letter in JRSSA; authors reply on arXiv 13 May 2024 Published letter not read; arXiv v5 read. | reported analysis | src-weissman-2024, src-debarre-worobey-2024 |
| 73 | 15 May 2024 (date only) | 15 May 2024: HHS suspends EcoHealth Alliance and proposes debarment Dr Daszak suspended 21 May 2024. Grant-compliance grounds, not an origin finding. | reported official | src-hhs-eha-suspension-2024 |
| 74 | 19 Sep 2024 (date only) | Sep 2024: Crits-Christoph et al. in Cell on market wildlife genetics Issue date per the NIH manuscript record. | reported analysis | src-crits-christoph-2024 |
| 75 | 04 Dec 2024 (date only) | 4 Dec 2024: WIV scientist reports 56 new betacoronavirus genomes in a conference talk Not peer reviewed; reported by Nature news. | single witness | src-sciam-shi-2024 |
| 76 | 04 Dec 2024 (date only) | 4 Dec 2024: House Select Subcommittee final report (Democrats' report 3 Dec) Majority: likely a laboratory or research related accident; Democrats: largely circumstantial. | reported official | src-house-sscp-2024, src-house-dem-2024 |
| 77 | 17 Jan 2025 (date only) | Jan 2025: HHS debars EcoHealth Alliance and Dr Daszak for five years Date per the House release of 17 Jan 2025; the notices are undated in the extracted text. | reported official | src-house-release-2025-eha, src-hhs-eha-notice-2025, src-hhs-daszak-notice-2025 |
| 78 | 25 Jan 2025 (date only) | 25 Jan 2025: CIA statement, low confidence that a research-related origin is more likely (as quoted by CBS and AP) The CIA document was not read. | single official | src-cbs-cia-2025 |
| 79 | 07 Mar 2025 (date only) | 7 Mar 2025: US court default judgment against China (per China's white paper) The judgment was not read (co-sq-missouri). | single official | src-china-whitepaper-2025 |
| 80 | 12 Mar 2025 (date only) | 12 Mar 2025: German press reports a BND assessment favouring a laboratory accident The government declined to comment; the BND document was not read. | single official | src-tagesspiegel-bnd-2025, src-bpk-2025 |
| 81 | 18 Apr 2025 (date only) | 18 Apr 2025: White House page "Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19" (modified 15 Aug 2025) States a lab-related incident is "the most likely origin"; cites no evidence on the page. | reported official | src-whitehouse-lableak |
| 82 | 30 Apr 2025 (date only) | 30 Apr 2025: China's State Council white paper on Covid-19 origins tracing Says China's origin study has ended and points to the United States. | reported official | src-china-whitepaper-2025, src-nhc-whitepaper-news-2025 |
| 83 | 27 Jun 2025 (date only) | 27 Jun 2025: WHO SAGO independent assessment "The weight of available evidence ... suggests zoonotic spillover"; laboratory route cannot be assessed without data. | reported official | src-sago-2025, src-sago-news-2025 |
| 84 | 04 Apr 2026 (date only) | Mar-Apr 2026: critics of the Pekar analysis (Weissman, EJW March 2026; McCowan arXiv v3 4 Apr 2026) Secondary for the erratum. | reported analysis | src-mccowan-2025, src-weissman-ejw-2026 |
| 85 | 10 Apr 2026 (date only) | 10 Apr 2026: Senate HSGAC transcribed interview of Dr Ralph Baric Released July 2026. | reported witness | src-baric-ti-2026 |
| 86 | 18 Jun 2026 (date only) | 18 Jun 2026: ODNI page announces release of COVID-19 documents (not read) Only the page introduction was read; it contains allegations; nothing is stated here about the documents (co-sq-odni-2026-release). | single official | src-odni-gabbard-2026 |
| 87 | 22 Jul 2026 (date only) | 22 Jul 2026: Senate HSGAC chairman releases Slack messages of Proximal Origin authors Chairman-selected; framing partisan. | single document | src-hsgac-slack-2026 |
People and bodies involved
- Peter Daszak: Former president of EcoHealth Alliance; principal investigator of the DEFUSE proposal; suspended 21 May 2024 and debarred by HHS for five years (grant-compliance grounds).
- Ralph Baric: UNC Chapel Hill virologist; named subcontractor in DEFUSE; gave a transcribed interview to Senate HSGAC on 10 Apr 2026.
- Shi Zhengli: Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist; partner in DEFUSE; said in a Dec 2024 talk that new sequences were not closer to SARS-CoV-1 or SARS-CoV-2.
- Kristian Andersen: Lead author of "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" (2020) and corresponding author of Worobey et al. 2022 (co-author of Pekar et al. 2022); testified to the House in 2023.
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: WHO Director-General; said on 30 Mar 2021 that the laboratory-incident assessment "was not extensive enough" and that all hypotheses remain on the table.
Sources
src-andersen-2020Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine 26(4):450-452 (17 Mar 2020). DOI 10.1038/s41591-020-0 authenticity: authenticated, moderatesrc-andersen-testimony-2023Dr Kristian Andersen, written testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (corrected version; hearing of 11 July 2023) authenticity: authenticated, moderatesrc-asm-2022American Society for Microbiology. ASM responds to Senate HELP report on COVID origin (28 October 2022) authenticity: authenticated, moderatesrc-baric-ti-2026Senate HSGAC (Chairman Paul): transcribed interview of Dr Ralph Baric, 10 April 2026 (released July 2026; cover page "Key Findings" is written by the committee authenticity: authenticated, moderatesrc-biden-2021-05-26President Biden. Statement on the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, 26 May 2021 authenticity: authenticated, strongsrc-bloom-2021Bloom JD. 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