It was in late 2019 that the first case of coronavirus was reported in Wuhan, China. When this first case was reported, no medical experts foresaw that this infection will emerge as a global pandemic. During the initial days of the outbreak, several top medical experts and scientists all across the globe had suggested that the virus could have leaked from the Virology Institute in Wuhan. And now, a report by US Republicans has claimed that there is enough evidence to prove that the virus has leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Scientists modified coronavirus to infect humans
The report blatantly dismissed the possibility of the virus originating from a wet market as initially speculated. According to the report, the leak actually happened in September, months before the world began to take notice of the disease.
"We now believe it's time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source. We also believe the preponderance of the evidence proves the virus did leak from the WIV and that it did so sometime before September 12, 2019," said the report.
The Republican report comes just a few weeks after United States president Joe Biden asked US intelligence agencies to find the exact origin of the disease.
Representative Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the report by the panel's Republican staff and called for a bipartisan investigation into the origins of the pandemic that has already claimed the lives of more than 4.4 million people worldwide.
China repeatedly denies genetically modifying Covid
As several top scientists all across the world allege China's involvement in the coronavirus pandemic, the Asian giant has repeatedly denied modifying coronavirus so that it will infect humans. A separate investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) has also claimed that the virus most likely has a natural origin.
However, the United States was skeptical about the WHO report, and the country questioned the methodology of the WHO study that involved Chinese officials too.
Recently, some shocking footage from the Wuhan Institute of Virology had gone viral online, and it showed live bats locked up in cages. The footage also triggered a fresh wave of controversy, and people have started claiming that the Covid pandemic might have escaped from the laboratory, either intentionally or accidentally.
A few months back, Chinese virologist Dr Le-Meng Yan had also claimed that coronavirus was intentionally released by China as a bioweapon. Yan alleged that China is using misinformation to mislead the public.
