Since the virus was first detected last year in Wuhan, many conspiracy theories regarding the origins of the virus are floating. From state officials to media outlets, all are speculating for a while now, though the initial indications pointed out that SARS-CoV-2 originated in Wuhan’s wet market, where wild animals are sold.
Many western media outlets are reporting that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The similar conspiracy theories regarding China using military labs to create secret bioweapons have also been taking rounds.
Meanwhile, the Wuhan lab has broken silence, denying the allegations and calling it misleading the masses about the virus. But the US government has started an investigation into China’s lab and its role in the virus.
The US security agencies are now working on a report, which will be presented before President Trump. But according to an American media outlet, White House officials have ruled out the chances that the virus was engineered by the Chinese scientists as a bio-weapon.
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On March 17, a team of researchers led by Kristian G. Andersen also confirmed the assessment that the coronavirus characteristics pointed out to naturally occurring and not a man-made mutation. The study was published in the edition of the journal Nature Medicine.
Another critical factor is that the studies going on in Wuhan lab were not any secret; they have been published in medical journals. Many European countries have also participated in researches in Wuhan. A British newspaper also reported that the US provided financial assistance for research at a lab in Wuhan.
Coronavirus Origins
In January, scientists started to study the origins of the virus. The official theory then became that the virus transmitted from animals to humans at the wet market in Wuhan.
Various scientists around the world have questioned this official theory. By the end of January, ‘the science’ magazine questioned and said that 13 of the first 41 patients had no connection to the wet market.
However, China has denied the allegations and said that it immediately reported it to the World Health Organization.
The Who says that many people who tested positive at the very initial stages were either stall owners or regular visitors. The samples taken in December suggested that the Wuhan wet market played the initial amplification of the outbreak.
The WHO and China have been working closely since the virus broke out. The UN body has also asserted that there is no proof so far that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab premises.
However, the Chinese embassy reacted angrily to the accusations and said that the studies regarding the origin of the virus are still underway. Many world leaders, including French President Immanuel Macron, have questioned the coronavirus data provided by the communist party.
The US starts Investigation
Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the US is trying to determine whether the virus first crossed to humans accidentally during the experiment in the Wuhan lab on bats.
China has not been forthcoming about various aspects of the coronavirus outbreak, and American president Trump said that soon he would be exposing the real number of deaths and infection in China.
The skepticism of China’s death toll declared by the health authorities is shared by many around the globe. Many have called it an “unrealistic” number. It has so far reported 3,000 deaths, and the US death toll surged to 20,000 and constantly rising.
The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that the best to cooperate with China is to let the world scientists in the city conduct studies. So, that the world could exactly know “how this virus began to spread?”
Meanwhile, America’s leading doctor and the member of the White House coronavirus taskforce rejected the conspiracy theories suggesting the virus as a Chinese bioweapon. He underscored on Friday that the studies of the virus genome have strongly indicated that it initially transmitted from animals rather than enhanced or created in any laboratory.
Authorities and scientists have not come to a firm conclusion about the first occurrence of the animal-to-human transmission and the role of the wet market.
