In January 2020, conspiracy theories spread which said that the the COVID-19 pandemic came from a virus made by the WIV. But scientific evidence says that the virus is natural. One story in the "Washington Post" said that US State Department had raised safety concerns about WIV's research on bat coronaviruses in 2018. In April 2020, U.S. intelligence officials looked into reports the virus may have started by an accident by WIV scientists studying bats.