The possibility COVID-19 could have leaked from a Chinese lab should not be ruled out, a former top Chinese government scientist has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor George Gao, the former head of China’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC), told the BBC Radio 4 podcast Fever: The Hunt for COVID’s Origin: “You can always suspect anything. That’s science. Don’t rule out anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is in contrast to the position of the Chinese government, which dismisses any suggestion the virus may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wuhan – the city where the virus was first detected – is home to one of China’s top national laboratories known to have spent years studying coronaviruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Gao played a key role in the pandemic response and efforts to trace how it started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The COVID-19 lab leak theory resurfaced earlier this year in February when the FBI’s director said this is where it “most likely” originated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But many scientists say the weight of evidence suggests that a natural origin – the virus spreading from animals to humans – is the most likely scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a report seen by the Wall Street Journal, four other US agencies agreed with the FBI and said a lab leak was likely the result of natural transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another two agencies remain officially undecided, the Journal added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The possibility COVID-19 could have leaked from a Chinese lab should not be ruled out, a former top Chinese government scientist has said. Professor George Gao, the former head of China’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC), told the BBC Radio 4 podcast Fever: The Hunt for COVID’s Origin: “You can always suspect anything. That’s science. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2722,1471,2721,193,1768,2723],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chinese","tag-covid-19","tag-lab-leak-theory","tag-news","tag-pandemic","tag-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6903,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions\/6903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}