The Covid-19 pandemic most likely originated in a laboratory, writes a US government department. The study, conducted on behalf of the US Department of Energy, is considered important as it oversees a network of 17 laboratories that include research in advanced biology.
From the beginning there has been speculation that Covid-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which had collected and manipulated bat viruses. The FBI also believes that Covid originated in a Chinese lab.
According to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal, reports say it is likely that the virus emerged from a laboratory, but not as part of its use as a biological weapon, but was accidental.
However, the report does not necessarily prove that the virus originated in a laboratory. There are many other US agencies that disagree with these claims. The CIA is one of the agencies that remains undecided about drawing conclusions. Furthermore, experts are unable to review the evidence on which the US Department of Energy report is based.
Dr. Filippa Lentzos told Guadia that the question of origin remained open. According to her, it could have been a natural spread, the result of research work, an incident at the workplace. "There is no hard evidence, only circumstantial evidence," she said.
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said the WHO had not received any information about the report. Other experts have criticized the report, considering it unscientific.
Why has it been so difficult to say with certainty how the pandemic started? The first problem is related to the difficulty of finding the origin of a virus, because the spread from one species to another complicates the search. Second, the research is complicated by the politicization of the issue.
