A Canadian molecular biologist Dr Alina Chan has told the UK Parliament that it is reasonable to believe that Covid-19 was genetically engineered in China.
Dr Alina Chan claimed that a leak from a laboratory in the Wuhan region of China was more likely the origin of this global pandemic.
The statement has come at a time when the new Covid variant ‘Omicron’ is beginning to be a cause of fresh concern around the world and the WHO’s attempts to appease China has been facing criticism.
Chan who is a specialist in gene therapy and cell engineering told this to the Science and Technology Select Committee of the House of Commons which is probing into the source of the origin of the virus and its impact on human life.
She has also co-authored a book with, Lord Matt Ridley ‘Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19,’ that has deeply investigated the source of the killer virus.
Recording her statement before the Parliament panel’s evidence session she said that the pandemic was caused by the unique feature of the coronavirus called furin cleavage site which has been linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Chan is a researcher at Harvard and MIT. She said that the bulk of circumstantial evidence points towards an accidental research-related emergence of SARS2 in Wuhan. A natural origin has been investigated more thoroughly than a lab origin, yet no dispositive evidence has been found.
Why I lean towards a lab #OriginOfCovid
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) December 15, 2021
1. The bulk of circumstantial evidence points towards an accidental research-related emergence of SARS2 in Wuhan.
2. A natural origin has been investigated more thoroughly than a lab origin, yet no dispositive evidence has been found. https://t.co/HUOB0NTAzj
Chan said that the Chinese Communist Party had covered up the initial outbreak in Wuhan two years ago and China also attempted to sabotage the inquiry set up by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to trace the origin of the pandemic.
It is notable here that the WHO ‘fact-finding’ team that went to Wuhan included US scientist Peter Daszak, whose own organisation Eco Health Alliance was funding the gain of function research of zoonotic viruses in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The same scientist has been vocally dismissing ‘lab origin’ theories of the coronavirus pandemic and had also been using his influence to shut down lab origin allegations as baseless.
Virus was probably modified in the lab before leak
Asked whether the virus was modified in the lab before the leak, Chan said that she heard from many top virologists that a genetically engineered origin of this virus was reasonable.
“And this includes virologists who themselves have made modifications to the first SARS virus,” she said.
She said that this virus has a very “unique feature, called the furin cleavage site that makes it the pandemic pathogen it is. So, without this feature, there’s no way this would be causing this pandemic.”
She referred to the proposal of US-based EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology that got leaked in September. The proposal talks about the plan to put human-specific furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in the lab.
“So, you find these scientists who said in early 2018 ‘I am going to put horns on horses’ and at the end of 2019 a unicorn turns up in Wuhan city,” she said.
Chan said that scientists who were part of this secret project should explain that their work did not result in the creation of SARS-COV2 that caused the pandemic and an investigation of documents made available by EcoHealth Alliance could hold the key.
No single infected animal found as the progenitor of this pandemic
WHO and China tried hard to convince the world that the virus might have passed from bats to humans through another animal. Such studies chiefly aimed to dismiss the laboratory leak theory and let people believe that the virus had a natural origin.
Lord Matt Ridley who also joined the evidence session supported Chan’s assertion that it was a lab leak and not the act of bats.
“We have to face the fact that after two months we knew the origins of SARS through markets, and after a couple of months, we knew the origin of MERS through camels. In this case, after two years we still haven’t found a single infected animal that could be the progenitor of this pandemic; that’s extremely surprising,” he said.
‘How did a virus normally found in Horseshoe bats in southern China end up 1000 miles further north in Wuhan’
— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 15, 2021
Author of Viral, The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 Lord Matt Ridley discusses the origin of Covid-19 with GB News presenter @Nigel_Farage. pic.twitter.com/fVHpIoatWj
Ridley said that systematic attempts were made to stop any discussion on the topic. But the facts will have to be dug out to prevent the next pandemic.
“We also need to know to deter bad actors who are watching this episode and thinking that unleashing a pandemic is something they could get away with,” he said.
When will the truth come out
As the select committee is set to submit the report by the next year, Chan said that the truth of the origin of the deadly virus will eventually come out.
Right now, it’s not safe for people who know about the origin of the pandemic to come forward,” she said.
“But we live in an era where there is so much information being stored that it will eventually come out”, she added.
