Chinese Virologist Dismisses Idea Of COVID-19 Escaping From Wuhan Lab

Prominent Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli has denied the reports alleging that the coronavirus originally leaked from a state lab in Wuhan, the city where a COVID-19 outbreak first emerged in late 2019

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2021) Prominent Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli has denied the reports alleging that the coronavirus originally leaked from a state lab in Wuhan, the city where a COVID-19 outbreak first emerged in late 2019.

Shi is a lead infectious diseases researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In an interview with The New York Times, she said that the speculation about the coronavirus originating in the institute's lab was baseless.

"How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?" the virologist said, adding "I don't know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist."

Last month, US President Joe Biden ordered that the US intelligence community produce a report re-examining the origins of the novel coronavirus and determining whether the disease leaked from a lab or spread from an infected animal to a human.

China continues to call the lab-leak theory a conspiracy.

In January, international experts traveled to Wuhan where they examined a lab, hospitals and markets for clues on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The expert mission of the World Health Organization then compiled a report saying that a leak of the new coronavirus from the lab in Wuhan was very unlikely. The report, released in March, said that the new virus was most likely transmitted to humans from bats through an intermediary host.