Of all the mysteries about the novel coronavirus, its origin excites the most fervent debate. At the outbreak’s beginning, there were conspiracy theories that the virus was man-made; recently, questions have focused on whether a natural virus was accidentally spread through research.
In the United States, such speculation largely comes from politicians hawkish against Beijing and keen to defend the Trump administration. Scientists, meanwhile, are often the most hesitant to speak out, wanting to focus on research that helps end the outbreak — not who, if anyone, caused it.
But the theories have spread widely, prompting a response from U.S. officials and President Trump himself. So, here is a skeptic’s take on three rapidly mutating theories: one clearly false, one possible but not supported by known evidence and one broadly true.
1. The outbreak was linked to bioweapons research
As China placed Hubei province under lockdown in January, the Washington Times, a conservative U.S. newspaper, cited research by former Israeli military intelligence officer Dany Shoham to argue that “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program” in Wuhan, the Hubei capital.
That article suggested that the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory and the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been working on biological warfare. Both institutions are real — they were hardly secretive — but there is no evidence of this. When contacted by The Washington Post for a Jan. 29 article, Shoham refused to comment further…To read the entire article from The Washington Post, click https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/16/what-caused-coronavirus-skeptical-take-theories-about-outbreaks-chinese-origin/