China is facing renewed allegations that the COVID-19 outbreak was caused by a leak from one of their laboratories – and that this research is connected to biowarfare. It is a question asked pretty much since the pandemic was identified: was COVID-19 a natural outbreak or a disease that escaped from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan? A recent report by the Sunday Times claims the newspaper has seen evidence that China was developing dangerous coronaviruses in collaboration with the Chinese military for the alleged purposes of biowarfare. This research programme was the likely source of the pandemic, the report asserts.
The allegations
The new allegations are based on “hundreds of documents” including confidential reports and memos, emails and scientific papers, as well as interviews with US State Department officials who have investigated the pandemic’s source. The report also claims that researchers from the Wuhan laboratory were taken to hospital with “COVID-like symptoms” in November 2019. What caused COVID-19 has been investigated before, but these studies are not conclusive. The World Health Organisation (WHO) carried out an inspection in January 2021.
