LAB LEAK Coronavirus pandemic started as ‘an accident’
when man-made virus leaked from China lab, ex-MI6 boss says
Alex Winter
THE coronavirus pandemic "started as an accident" when the engineered virus escaped from a Chinese lab, a former MI6 chief has said.
Sir Richard Dearlove says he's seen an "important" new report which claims the virus didn't emerge naturally.
A former spy chief claims Covid-19 didn't occur naturally in the wild, but may have been created instead
by Chinese scientists Credit: AP:Associated Press
Instead, it was created by Chinese scientists before it accidentally leaked, Sir Richard told The Telegraph.
And he claimed the report could force China to pay 'reparations' to the rest of the world for the death toll and economic hardship wrought by the virus.
International scientists believe the virus emerged in animals - most likely bats or pangolins - before jumping to the human population.
But Sir Richard says a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team suggests key elements of Covid-19's genetic sequences were "inserted" and may not have evolved naturally.
He said: "It raises the issue, if China ever were to admit responsibility, does it pay reparations?
"I think it will make every country in the world rethink how it treats its relationship with China."
Sir Richard suggested scientists may have been conducting secret gene-splicing experiments on bat coronaviruses when Covid-19 somehow escaped through a lapse in biosecurity.
"It's a risky business if you make a mistake," he said.
It's an insane business and ought to be a crime against humanity.
Sir Richard, who was the head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, said he's read peer-reviewed research produced by top academics at St George's Hospital at the University of London and Norwegian virologists.
The paper claims that there are 'inserted sections' in the DNA of the virus, and warns that current efforts to develop a vaccine are doomed - because the virus has been misunderstood.
Some have claimed the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology Credit: AFP or licensors
Sir Richard called the study a "very important contribution to a debate which is now starting" about how the virus evolved and then turned into a pandemic.
Sir Richard says it could raise questions about how China will compensate affected countries Credit: Reuters
The paper has been rewritten several times, and an earlier version apparently claimed coronavirus could correctly be called the "Wuhan virus".
The earlier version, seen by The Telegraph, claimed to have proven "beyond all reasonable doubt that the Covid-19 virus is engineered."
One of the authors, John Fredrik Moxnes, asked for his name to be withdrawn from the research, throwing its credibility into doubt.
London academics have also dismissed its conclusions, it is understood.
But the remaining authors claim the virus has "unique fingerprints" that cannot have evolved naturally.
The paper has not yet been accepted for publication in any scientific journal.
The Chinese government has always insisted that the outbreak began in a "wet market" in the city of Wuhan late last year.
The truth, it seems is slowly emerging. It is just too much of a coincidence to believe that the very coronavirus the Wuhan Lab was working on began naturally in a wet market just down the street!
Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Who Discovered HIV Says Coronavirus Was Created In Lab (second story on link immediately above)
