The theory that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, may originate from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has gained new air under its wings after US President Joe Biden this week ordered a new investigation.
Now the British intelligence is also coming on the scene. The representatives who The Sunday Times has spoken with, says that Western intelligence – including the one in the country – has now reassessed the likelihood that the virus leaked from the laboratory Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the Chinese city.
Up to 2000 gathered in Oslo Park
Here, researchers are working with SARS viruses that can be transmitted from animals to humans. The intelligence services now consider the probability of the theory to be “conceivable”, as opposed to “unlikely” before. Several of the country’s parliamentarians also demand that a new international investigation be opened, the newspaper writes.
The theory resurfaces
President Biden has ordered the intelligence service to present a report on the case within three months, and try to clarify whether the virus originated from animals or was spread after a laboratory accident.
The theory really took on new life after that Wall Street Journal quoted a US intelligence report that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were admitted to hospital in November 2019, a month before the first cases of covid-19 were detected. Avisa wondered if these three could have fallen ill with the virus a month before the first reported cases.
INVESTIGATED: Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the laboratory where the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 may have originated. The photo was taken when the WHO visited the institute in February. Photo: Reuters / NTB.
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A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the information in the US intelligence report “totally untrue”.
The theory is still considered relevant, as long as no virus has yet been found in samples from bats or other animals identical to SARS-CoV-2.
WHO snur
It has long been speculated whether the virus ended up as a pandemic, after being leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. WHO experts have previously said that this is “extremely unlikely”.
Thousands gathered in religious ritual
– The hypothesis that there was an incident in a laboratory is an extremely unlikely explanation for how the virus found its way to the population, Danish Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO’s expert group in Wuhan, has previously stated.
Now he is apparently less slanted. In an interview with Berlingske Tidende Embarek says this week that the WHO team never ruled out a lab accident as a possible theory.
– It was perhaps not the luckiest choice to use a scale that goes from “most likely” to “extremely unlikely”. Maybe we should have chosen a different, and more neutral scale. But we never ruled it out, he states.
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– In principle, one is enough to cause an accident, he says to the Danish newspaper.
Earlier in May, 18 researchers published an appeal in the renowned journal Science, where they criticized the WHO team’s conclusion. The team must, according to Washington Post only had a few hours to examine the laboratories in Wuhan. The researchers behind the appeal believe the possibility of an “unintentional release from a laboratory” is still real.
WHO Chief Tedro’s Adhanom Ghebreyesus also believes that the lab theory should be investigated further. He points out that the expert group “expressed difficulties in accessing raw data” while in China.
Fungal epidemic: – Worse than covid-19
China is raging
The answer to the Wuhan riddle has enormous implications for China, which claims it is not responsible for the pandemic, and for the United States, whose National Institutes of Health NIH previously funded bat research at the Wuhan laboratory.
The United States’ leading infection control expert, Anthony Fauci, also said earlier this month that he “is no longer convinced” that the coronavirus originated naturally.
– I am not convinced of that, I think we should continue to investigate what happened in China until we find out as much as we can about where it came from, he replied and continued:
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– People who investigate it, say that it probably originated from an animal – and then transmitted to humans. But also that it may have been another reason. And we have to find out.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Chinese Global Times, led by the Communist Party, takes a strong stand against the infection control expert and his “war of opinion against China”, and draws out his statements this month.
– This is an obvious lie, a conspiracy constructed by US intelligence to oppress China. Is it a coincidence that he says this now? asks Xijin, pointing out that Fauci has been critical of the theory on several occasions.
56 days in respirator: – Was completely lame
Was considered a conspiracy theory
The idea that the coronavirus could originate from a laboratory in Wuhan has previously been referred to as a conspiracy theory, and was frequently reproduced by former US President Donald Trump, who consistently referred to the virus as the “China virus”.
Earlier this week, it also became known that Facebook no longer removes posts where it is suggested that the virus may come from the Chinese laboratory, as they have previously done.
The virus has spread around the world since the first cases were discovered in China, and more than 3.4 million people have lost their lives, the overview shows to Worldometers.
Experts believe that there are also large dark numbers.
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