The pandemic has claimed more than 160,000 lives worldwide so far and many questions remain unanswered about the coronavirus that caused it. The Wuhan Laboratory which has been accused as a possible source of the pandemic, has denied any responsibility.
Chinese Coronavirus
Patient Zero has not yet been identified.
All experts agree that the most likely source of the epidemic remains China.
Strangely the most important question that is somewhat being ignored by the media is who patient zero was. The most common hypothesis is that, in order to identify him or her, it would be necessary to start in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first cases were diagnosed.
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Was patient zero among the workers or customers of the famous fish market? Or was he an employee of the lab who was accidentally infected and unknowingly brought it to the Wuhan wet market? or was it a totally different scenario?
Was COVID-19 a naturally occurring virus?
Shortly after the outbreak, the Chinese shared the characteristics of this new virus which were subsequently published in several scientific publications, including The Lancet. Based on this data, scientists from several countries immediately agreed that SARS-CoV-2 was not a synthetic virus resulting from laboratory work, which was also confirmed in an article published in Nature magazine.
The most likely hypothesis accepted was therefore that the epidemic originated from bats s a known host for various types of coronavirus, with the suspicion that pangolin was a vector from which human contamination was possible.
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The Wuhan laboratory was put on the spot again by An article published on 14 April in the Washington Post which stated that the US Embassy in Beijing had informed the US authorities of the danger of this laboratory several times in the last two years. The threat was confirmed on Friday 18 April in Le Point by an American biologist from Rutfled University, Professor Richard H. Ebright, who said he had evidence “that the coronavirus project at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control had implemented safety standards that would pose a high risk of infection for personnel. “ But the scientist also noted that he does not believe the CoV-2-CoV-SARS synthetic origin hypothesis is credible.
Investigation initiated by the United States
The theory that coronavirus was man made which was touted in the beginning of the epidemic and was shut down by scientist, has now become more plausible because of Professor Luc Montagnier.
Professor Luc Montagnier, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of the AIDS virus, told the journal Pourquoi Docteur that SARS-CoV-2 was manipulated in the Wuhan laboratory in search of an AIDS vaccine. The Nobel Prize winner explained that he and one of his colleagues had discovered HIV sequences in the genome analysis of the corona virus.
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Emphatic denial by the Wuhan Institute of Virology
The date on which the epidemic actually broke out, where and how it was transmitted to the people, the real impact of the epidemic in China is still unclear, which led the United States to launch an investigation to obtain further information and dispel the doubts expressed by Emmanuel Macron: “Obviously, things have happened that we know nothing about,” said the French president. And Donald Trump went so far this weekend as to threaten China with “consequences” if ongoing investigations show “that the epidemic could have been stopped but it was not”.
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But the director of the laboratory in Wuhan again denied any responsibility this weekend: “It is impossible that this virus came from us”, said Yuan Zhiming, director of the Institute of Virology, in an interview with the state television channel CGTN.
References
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext
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