The hypothesis that the coronavirus …

Interest to be determined the origin of the virus that claimed more than 3.4 million lives worldwide continues to spark controversy. In the last days, In the United States and other countries, the hypothesis of a leak of the coronavirus from a Chinese laboratory has gained momentum.

“The list of people who support the thesis of an animal origin has not budged. However, the list of people who suggest that [el virus] it could have come out of a lab and continue to develop, ”said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the chain’s US drug agency (FDA). CNBC.

And I add: “What is called the “intermediate host”, that is, the animal from which the virus was transmitted to humans, has not yet been discovered. And not because he didn’t ask “.

“The question, for many people, is, when are the coincidences too many?” increasing amount of “circumstantial evidence”.

Meanwhile, Sunday, the newspaper The Wall Street Journal claims to have had access to unpublished US intelligence information, and revealed that three researchers from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan – the city in China where the new coronavirus was first reported – had already suffered in November 2019 “from symptoms compatible with both those of Covid-19 like a seasonal infection ”, and that they should have been hospitalized.

For its part, US Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra called for “independent and transparent” studies on the origin of the coronavirus, during his speech at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We need to better understand the pandemic in order to better respond to future threats, and studies on the origin of Covid-19 must be transparent, science-based and expert independence“, Pointed out Becerra.

Last February, the United States had already expressed its dissatisfaction with the preliminary results of the investigations carried out by international experts in Wuhan (China) to seek the possible origin of the pandemic., and estimated that the Chinese authorities had hidden data from this WHO mission.

After four weeks of work in China, experts said the most likely hypothesis of the origin of the new coronavirus was that it had been transmitted to humans by wild animals via one or more species which acted as intermediaries.

In their report, they also indicated that the least likely hypothesis was that of origin in a laboratory and they did not consider contagion through imported frozen food too plausible, a theory launched by the Chinese official media.

However, WHO chief himself, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for further research into the laboratory leak hypothesis. Several countries, including the United States, have expressed “concerns” and asked China to grant “full access” to their data. On Monday, there was a renewed demand on the occasion of the 74th World Health Assembly.