Sources within the US government say there is “increasing confidence” that the novel coronavirus originated in a Wuhan laboratory and not the wet market as China originally claimed, according to a Fox News report.
According to the story, sources familiar with the briefings on China’s early response to deal with the pandemic say “patient zero” was likely at a laboratory working on handling and combating viruses.
While the case is not definitive, investigators are looking into the matter closely.
One source characterized the Chinese government’s response as the “costliest government cover-up of all time.”
President Donald Trump addressed the theory that the virus originated in a lab on Wednesday by saying that the US government is conducting a “thorough examination” on the virus.
“More and more we’re hearing the story…we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation,” said Trump.
US Senator Tom Cotton and True North founder Candice Malcolm were among the several people attacked for questioning the Chinese government’s claim that the virus originated in a wet market.
In January, freelance writer Justin Ling accused Malcolm of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories for simply asking if the virus could have been a leak from a Chinese lab.
Since then, major outlets like the Washington Post have backpedalled on their earlier narratives and are now saying “scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan” could be the source of the deadly disease.
Even officials within the UK government are taking the theory that the virus came out of a laboratory in the area seriously.
Wuhan is the home of not one but two laboratories that test viruses. Both the Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control were conducting experiments in the region leading up to the outbreak.
“There is a credible alternative view [to the wet market theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted,” a source from the UK’s emergency committee of senior officials told the Daily Mail.
Since the very beginning of the global pandemic, the Chinese government has lied to the world about the nature of the coronavirus.
On January 14, the World Health Organization parrotted false claims by the communist party that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission for the coronavirus.
Prior to misinforming the world about how the virus spreads and putting many lives at risk, the Chinese government knew that it was spreading among people as early as November.
According to a research study by the University of Southampton, China could have prevented 95% of the infections in the country if it had told the truth and acted three weeks sooner.
