A new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats, Daily Mail informs.
The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year but were ignored by academics and major journals.
While analyzing COVID-19 samples last year in an attempt to create a vaccine, Dalgleish and Sørensen discovered 'unique fingerprints' in the virus that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory.
They said they tried to publish their findings but were rejected by major scientific journals which were at the time resolute that the virus jumped naturally from bats or other animals to humans.
Even when former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove spoke out publicly saying the scientists' theory should be investigated, the idea was dismissed as 'fake news.'
The COVID-19 lab leak theory is falsely claimed and some media reports from the United States are based on hearsay, a German biologist has said.
Matthias Glaubrecht, scientific director and professor from the Department of Animal Diversity at the University of Hamburg, made the remarks in a recent interview with German media Der Spiegel.
So far the most impeccable hypothesis is from the World Health Organization that COVID-19 jumped to humans via intermediate hosts, according to the biologist.
"In nature, new virus variants are constantly emerging, (and) genes are changing. Even the best experts cannot tell where new sequences come from," Glaubrecht told Der Spiegel.
He questioned some media reports that cited U.S. intelligence information suggesting that the virus is man-made and leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.
The Australian scientist on a World Health Organization (WHO) expert team sent to China on a COVID-19 origin-tracing mission defended the team's findings as some reports speculated about the "lab leak" theory and after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered intelligence agencies to carry out extra investigations into the source of the pandemic.
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), University of Sydney Professor Dominic Dwyer, who along with scientists from other countries spent four weeks in Wuhan of China for the WHO mission, said there was no evidence to back up the lab escape theory.
"The U.S. intelligence forces were asked to show if they had any information that might be helpful. They haven't done that as yet," Dwyer said. ■