COVID-19 has no credible natural ancestor: Study
LONDON: Amid calls for a fresh probe into the origins of Covid-19, an explosive new study has found that Chinese scientists created the virus in a lab in Wuhan, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats.
The novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 virus has no "credible natural ancestor" and was created by Chinese scientists who were working on a 'Gain of Function' project in a Wuhan lab, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday, citing a new research paper by British professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr Birger Sorensen. The new research claims that scientists took a natural Coronavirus "backbone" found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new "spike", turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible Covid-19, ANI reported on Sunday.
The paper also quotes that researchers found "unique fingerprints" in Covid-19 samples that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory. Authors Dalgleish and Sorensen wrote in their paper that they had prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year, but were ignored by academics and major journals, reported DailyMail.com. The study alleged "deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data" at Chinese labs and notes the silencing and disappearance of scientists in China who spoke out about the activities.
The research, has been obtained by DailyMail.com, is expected to intensify the ongoing debate on China's role in creating the virus that has claimed thousands of lives. In the 22-page paper which is set to be published in the scientific journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery, Dalgleish and Sorensen pieced together how Chinese scientists, some working with American universities, allegedly built the tools to create the Coronavirus. Incidentally, 'Gain of Function' projects, which involves tweaking natural viruses to make them more infectious, had been outlawed by former US President Barack Obama.
