Wuhan

In a win for the US Department of Justice’s China Initiative, Charles Lieber was convicted of hiding his financial ties to China from federal agencies.

The House of Commons rebuked the president of the Canadian Public Health Agency for not turning over sensitive information pertaining to the dismissal of government scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory.

A letter signed by 18 researchers argues that hypotheses about zoonotic spillover or accidental lab release both “remain viable” in the absence of additional evidence.

An investigation by the World Health Organization into the origins of COVID-19 will instead focus on the virus’s animal origins and the possibility of spread through frozen foods.

Lacking many diagnostic test results from the first major outbreak, researchers have been left to scour other sources for clues about what happened in the early days of the pandemic.

A modeling study counters initial interpretations that the cluster began with someone who flew to Seattle in mid-January.

The pathogen appears to have come from wild animals, virologists say, and there are no signs of genetic manipulation in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

Liu Zhiming is the eighth frontline health-care worker to die from COVID-19, and hundreds more have been infected.