It is nine months since the World Health Organisation (WHO) dismissed the possibility that the Covid 19 pandemic could have originated in a laboratory leak, calling it ‘extremely unlikely’. Since then, much scientific opinion has been moving in the direction that it is at least a possibility – especially given that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been accused of engaging in ‘gain of function’ research into coronaviruses, involving manipulating the viruses into making them possibly more transmissible. Moreover, far from being rare, as the WHO intimated, the original SARS virus is known to have escaped from a laboratory on a couple of occasions.
But if Covid did get into the human population, how might it have escaped from the Wuhan lab? One possible answer lies in Taiwan, where a scientist working on Covid experiments at the Academia Sinica in Taipei has tested positive for the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after being bitten by a laboratory mouse on 19 November.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in