Publishing date: May 25, 2021 • 1 hour ago • 11 minute read • Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 3, 2021. Photo by Thomas Peter /REUTERS
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The source of the coronavirus that has left more than three million people dead around the world remains a mystery.
But in recent months the idea that it emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) once dismissed as a ridiculous conspiracy theory has gained new credence.
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How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible leaderpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from leaderpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In February, however, a short article was released by two Wuhan scientists, Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, pointing out that Wuhan laboratories had mounted expeditions across China to collect and study bat viruses. It made the bold statement that “in addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan”. The paper was later withdrawn and some concluded it was an empty guess.
Nevertheless, when sequencing Wuhan’s novel coronavirus determining the order of the genetic letters that make up its genome Dr Shi found that it closely resembled a short sequence from a bat virus her lab had collected in the Mojiang mine in 2013. In publishing this finding in