Covid-19 coronavirus: Wuhan lab ‘had an emergency shutdown’ last October

US intelligence agencies are investigating mobile phone data suggesting that the Wuhan Virology Institute had an emergency shutdown in October last year.

NBC News has reportedly obtained records showing that a “dangerous event” at the institute’s high-security National Biosafety Laboratory may have occurred between October 6 and 11.

This allegedly led to a closure of the P4 laboratory from October 7 to 24, during which there was no mobile activity, reports news.com.au.

The lab, located a short distance from the Wuhan Wet Market in the center of the coronavirus outbreak, is the facility that the Trump administration is blaming for starting the pandemic.

The report, which NBC said was carried out by private investigators, also suggested that road blocks were established around the laboratory between Oct. 14-19.

United States spy agencies are reviewing the document, but intelligence analysts examined and could not confirm a similar theory previously, two senior officials told the London-based NBC News Verification Unit.

The report offers no direct evidence of a shutdown, nor any proof of the theory that the virus accidentally emerged from the laboratory.

The outbreak is believed to have started in Wuhan last November.

Both Donald Trump and United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have favored a leak of the lab coronavirus over the prevailing theory that it jumped from humans to bats in a wet market.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison supported the wet market theory, while calling for an investigation into the origin of the outbreak.

Chinese authorities have denied that a laboratory accident caused the coronavirus outbreak.

US Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted about the report this week.

He wrote: “It would be interesting if someone analyzed the commercial telemetry data in and near the Wuhan laboratory from October to December 2019.

“If it shows dramatic decline activity compared to the previous 18 months, it would be a strong indication of an incident in the lab and when it occurred.”