A top Chinese virologist says that a lab leak scenario should not be discounted as a possible origin of COVID-19.
George Gao, the former director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Protection, told the BBC that another branch of the Chinese government had investigated the lab leak theory for COVID-19.
“They haven’t found wrongdoing,” Mr. Gao said.
He was interviewed for a recent episode of the BBC podcast “Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin.” As a former head of China’s CDC, Mr. Gao played a lead role in assessing COVID-19’s origin and Beijing’s response.
Government officials in Beijing have dismissed suggestions that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. However, Mr. Gao is not so certain.
“You can always suspect anything. That’s science. Don’t rule out anything,” he told the BBC.
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According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the scientific evidence suggests the coronavirus likely resulted from viral evolution in nature and jumped to people or through some unidentified animal host.
“Public health and scientific organizations are engaged in a continued international effort to uncover the origins of [COVID-19], which is essential to preventing future pandemics,” the NIH said in a statement.
But a report from the U.S. Department of Energy this year concluded that a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studies coronaviruses, is the most likely cause of the spread of COVID-19.
Still, a number of scientists point to the pandemic possibly starting at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, with the virus jumping from caged animals to shoppers.
Mr. Gao said he believed the lab was given a clean bill of health following the official investigation.
“I think their conclusion is that they [the Wuhan lab] are following all the protocols,” he told the BBC.
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China has suggested that the virus might have been transported to Wuhan in food shipments from other parts of China or countries in Southeast Asia.
Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there’s no direct evidence for either theory.
“The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the country, with almost every household feeling its effects. The American people deserve answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, including how this virus was created and specifically whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab-related event,” Mr. Turner said in March after Congress passed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023.
President Biden signed the act into law on March 20.
“We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics,” Mr. Biden said. “My administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible.”
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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