UK Gov't Advisor Raps China's Cover-Up Of COVID-19 Virus Wuhan Lab Leak

The origins of COVID-19 are still disputed, even two years after the first case was confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO). While many believe it was passed on to humans by an infected animal that was sold in a market, others uphold that it was accidentally leaked from a lab in Wuhan.

Photo Insert: Lord Matt Ridley finds it suspicious that a lab near the original outbreak, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was conducting research of this kind at the time.

Lord Matt Ridley, a former Conservative peer and co-author of 'Viral: The search for the origin of COVID-19,' told a Parliament panel last month the lab leak theory was now the most believable explanation, Jacob Paul recently reported for Daily Express.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, he explained that while he thinks it is most likely to have come from a lab, it was still passed on by bats.

He said: “It is a bat virus, but the question is how it got from bats to humans. There are two possibilities. One is that it infected an animal like a pangolin which was then sold in a market that infected people. The other possibility is that it infected a scientist who was working in bat caves collecting viruses from bats who brought it back to a lab. Or he brought a sample back from a lab where it infected a lab worker. It now seems from all the evidence that has come to light that the latter possibility now looks much stronger than the former possibility.”

Lord Ridley finds it suspicious that a lab near the original outbreak, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was conducting research of this kind at the time. He claimed that the lab housed the closest relative of COVID-19 known in the world. The fact that scientists from the Wuhan lab were carrying out research on a virus similar to COVID means that the lab leak theory is “easily possible,” according to Lord Ridley.

He told Express.co.uk: “The evidence is pointing that way, and after two years, the failure to produce any evidence for the alternative hypothesis in the shape of an infected animal, is very striking.”

Lord Ridley claimed that there is a “lack of transparency” in science that has helped to keep the lab leak theory at bay. He said: “There is a growing problem in science of an increasing tendency to put political reasons above full transparency and openness, and I think that is a pity.”

And Lord Ridley thinks it is time that China gets its act together to help put the question to bed. He told Express.co.uk: “Frankly, much of the world now thinks it is possible that COVID started with a lab leak so the impact on China’s reputation is already to some extent baked in.”

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