alt Hacker NewsWell, according to some reports, the first reported incidents happened in November 2019 and the months prior, from people who worked at Wuhan Institute of Virology (according to US government sources) [0]. Those people were: Ben Hu, Yu Ping, Zhu Yan.
[0] https://www.public.news/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19
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That is all based on the claim that they had illnesses with symptoms consistent with COVID. But those are also consistent with the flu and with the common cold and with other seasonal viruses which were also active at the time, since November is in the respiratory illness season there.
Not according to them and this little-known publication called "Science." I've never heard of it, but seems legit:
https://www.science.org/content/article/ridiculous-says-chin...
Normally, I would count that as a strong signal that the origin was said lab. But with the current government, I don't think such a report in isolation should be considered as strong evidence. The US is not trustworthy at the moment.
According to partisan online newsletter "public.news" that claims to have interviewed anonymous US government sources.
Unfortunately online search has gone useless and it's not possible to find out if anyone ever confirmed anything about that report. Just gazillion of other newslets repeating the original claim.