The lab-leak theory isn't new. It came into existence last year just after China reported the primary Covid-case. Nearly a month before the World Health Organisation declared coronavirus an epidemic in March 2020, Botao Xiao, a molecular biomechanics researcher at South China University of Technology published a paper citing that "the killer coronavirus as originated from the laboratory in Wuhan". The paper was published on February 6, 2020. However, he withdrew his paper a couple of weeks later after Chinese authorities insisted that no accident had taken place. In the following weeks, many within the scientific community dismissed the lab-leak theory.
On March 27, 2020, however, the US Defense intelligence updated its assessment of the origin of the novel coronavirus to reflect that it's going to are accidentally released from an infectious diseases lab. A month afterward April 27, 2020, President Donald Trump told reporters: "You had the idea from the lab. ... there is a lot of theories. But, yeah, we've people watching it very, very strongly." On an equivalent day, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a press release saying that the Intelligence Community will still "rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to work out whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it had been the results of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."
As coronavirus wreaked havoc across the US, the Trump administration became more vocal about the likelihood of the leak from the Wuhan lab. However, for an extended time, Trump's remarks on the difficulty were considered merely how to avoid criticism by blaming China for the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in America. Then-US secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 3 said in an interview to ABC that there's "enormous evidence" regarding the origin of the virus. He added that: "China features a history of infecting the planet, and that they have a history of running substandard laboratories" As the coronavirus continues to spread, countries closed their borders and imposed lockdowns to stop the surge in infections. Meanwhile, more evidence emerged indicating the non-natural origin of the virus.
In July, a report was published within the Times of London that an epidemic of 96 percent just like the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was found in an abandoned mine in China in 2012. In southwestern China, the bat-infested mine was home to a coronavirus that left six men sick with pneumonia, with three eventually dying, after that they had been tasked with shoveling bat guano out of the mine. After months of negotiations with China, a WHO team, which incorporates experts from 10 countries, visited in January the Huanan Seafood Market, the location of an early cluster of cases in late 2019. This came following the tremendous international pressure as China continued to resist involves a strictly independent investigation.
The inquiry didn't conclusively establish how or when the virus began spreading and did little to deal with Western concerns that the Chinese Communist Party bent the investigation to its advantage. Beijing was accused of delaying access to international investigators for months after the initial outbreak, virtually guaranteeing that the lab had been deep-cleaned before any forensic analysis might be done. On February 11, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus refused to rule out the lab-leak scenario. "Some questions are raised on whether some hypotheses are discarded," he said. "I want to clarify that each one hypothesis remains open and needs further study."
What's New on Coronavirus lab- Theory
A few days ago, a piece of writing was published within the Wall Street Journal which revealed that three researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized. The report was supported by previously undisclosed US intelligence researchers who were admitted into the hospital a month before China reported the primary case of COVID-19. The revelation has sparked debate and raised questions on whether China knew of the deadly virus way before it apprised the planet.
Author and former NYT science journalist Nicholas Wade said that if the reports are true it shows that the pandemic started several weeks before the given by the Chinese authorities. "The importance of the report, if true, is that it shows the pandemic started several weeks before the date given by the Chinese authorities, and thus that the Chinese had longer to organize for it. Had they shared this information with the remainder of the planet, many lives could perhaps are saved," he said in an email interview.
Recently, Wade published a piece of writing within the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists where he argues that evidence is stronger than the virus leaked from a lab than that it occurred naturally. In an elaborate report, Wade said that much of the work of Chinese virologists on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level lab, which needs taking fairly minimal safety precautions. The pandemic broke call at the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019."For the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus may be a no-brainer. Wuhan is home to China's leading center of coronavirus research where researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 lab.
If an epidemic with the unexpected infectiousness of SARS2 had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise," he said. Wade, who has worked on the staff of Nature, Science, and, for several years, the New York Times, talked about lack of access to evidence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or related labs in Wuhan. Bernard Roizman, a University of Chicago virologist told WSJ: "I'm convinced that what happened is that the virus was delivered to a lab, they began to work with it...and some sloppy individual brought it out," said .."They can't admit they did something so stupid." Another head-turning development that shocked experts and scientists was the report in an Australian daily which revealed that Chinese scientists were brooding about bioweapons, visualizing a World War-III scenario.
The Weekend Australian newspaper cited a Chinese government document that discussed the weaponization of SARS coronavirus. Titled the Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of artificial Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the 2015 paper was authored by Chinese scientists, Chinese public health officials, and members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Moreover, Anthony Fauci a top adviser to US President Joe Biden on the coronavirus pandemic and while skeptical of the lab-leaked theory, said he's "not convinced" the deadly virus developed naturally and has involved further investigations into where it emerged. Fauci was asked during a Poynter event, "United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking," earlier this month about whether he was confident that Covid-19 developed naturally, Fox News reported.
So far, there's no hard proof to support either the idea that the virus had natural origins or the idea that it leaked from a lab. Wade also said: "There is not any evidence for either scenario and thus no proof for either of them." Recently, a gaggle of leading UK and US scientists involved more investigation to work out the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the idea of an accidental release from a lab within the central Chinese city of Wuhan. In a letter published within the journal 'Science' early this month, the experts from world-leading universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT said knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the danger of future outbreaks.