Nobel winning scientist says COVID-19 originated in Wuhan lab



French Nobel Prize-winning virologist Luc Montagnier said he believes that the Covid-19  was developed in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Montagnier, who had won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of HIV in 2008, said the coronavirus does not have a natural origin. He also said the presence of elements of HIV in the genome of the coronavirus and even elements of the “germ of malaria” are highly suspect, media reported.

“It [the virus] is of artificial origin, it is the work of molecular biologists”, Montagnier said in an interview.

“The Wuhan city laboratory has specialized in these coronaviruses since the early 2000s. They have expertise in this area”, he added.

In recent days, various scientific journals have pointed out that samples of SARS were twice leaked accidentally from Chinese labs before.

Earlier this month, the United States government said it is exploring the possibility that the coronavirus was accidentally released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, after it was revealed that the wet market, which China blamed for the spread of the virus, did not sell bats, and the first patient, as well as multiple other early cases, did not have any connection to the market.

The reports that the virus originated in the wet market in China is “a beautiful legend”, as Covid-19 was developed in the laboratory, Montagnier said.

The West began questioning China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, after scientists pointed out that the country downplayed its number of cases of the virus “by a factor of 15 to 40 times”. Later, Wuhan authorities have revised the number of virus-related deaths up by 50%. China now has 84,237 cases and 4,642 deaths from the virus. In contrast, the US tally surpassed 800,000, and its death toll surpassed 45,000.

Germany’s largest newspaper Bild last week stuck Beijing with a €149 billion bill for damages inflicted on the country by its cover-up of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier, documents leaked to the media showed that after Chinese officials warned the public six days later from the day they secretly determined they were likely facing a pandemic. During that time, the city of Wuhan hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people, and millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.

UK intelligence officials said that China should answer for hiding crucial information about the coronavirus outbreak from the rest of the world.

China on March 25 imposed restrictions on the publication of academic research on the origins of Covid-19. Under the new directive, scientific research papers about tracing the origin of the virus must first be approved by the Chinese education ministry before they are published in international journals.

LO MÁS LEÍDO

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *