Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sep 14: Even as the source of the COVID-19 virus remains shrouded in mystery and China and the World Health Organisation vehemently opposing any suggestion of China having created it, a Chinese virologist now on the run has claimed of having proof of the virus being “man-made” in a Wuhan laboratory.
The Chinese virologist Dr Li-Meng Yan who is described as “a scientist who was working at the Hong Kong School of Public Health,” said she had proof that the SARS-Covid-2 virus was “in fact man-made” in a Wuhan lab. She said she would use the evidence “to tell people why this has come from the lab in China, why they are the ones who made it.” She believed that “Anyone, even if you have no biology knowledge, will be able to read it, and check and identify and verify it yourself.”
In a television interview which she wanted to be widely publicized to let the world know more about the Chinese conspiracy to hit the world, Li said “The genome sequence is like a human fingerprint” which could be easily traced to its source and identified.” Her video revealing about the virus mystery was also uploaded on YouTube.
Li said while working at Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, her supervisor first asked her to investigate a new “SARS-like” virus in Wuhan on December 31 – but that her efforts were later stifled. She said she reported back that cases appeared to be rising exponentially but was told to “keep silent and be careful. We will get in trouble and we’ll be disappeared,” is what was allegedly told to her.
The interviewer described Li as “a scientist who was working at the Hong Kong School of Public Health when she turned whistleblower on the Chinese Government, after she alleged they knew about the spread of the coronavirus before publicly acknowledging the outbreak.”
The description also added that “as a result, Li claims, she had to flee to the US for her own safety and is now determined to spread her findings to the world. She joined the interview from a secret location to tell us why she felt compelled to speak out, even if it meant putting her life on the line.”
Her revelation has opened up yet another controversy because almost for the last 10 months since the global pandemic crippling the world first broke out in China, the cause of the new SARS-Cov-2 virus has still remained untraced. It has been speculated by health experts, scientists and epidemiologists that the virus may have originated from a wet-food market in Wuhan, China.
The new novel coronavirus outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, China and was traced back to the sea-food market, which soon became the hotspot and was considered to be the origin centre, where a virus jumped from a bat or a pangolin onto humans.
Conspiracy theorists, however, have mentioned multiple times over that the virus is “man-made” in a Wuhan lab, located dangerously close to the wet sea-food market. Back in April, a French Nobel prize winning scientist Luc Montagnier had also sparked a controversy by making the same claim.
The Chinese National Health Commission, World Health Organisation and University Of Hong Kong, however, disputed all such claims including the one made by Li. In March, a paper published in science journal Nature on the proximal origins of Covid-19 found that “analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”
One of the authors of the paper claimed that “By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that [Covid-19] originated through natural processes.”
Contradicting the official claim, Li said she had proof that the virus came from a virology lab in Wuhan city and not from the wet-food market. She said after she informed her higher ups about her findings and was cautioned, the Chinese authorities began to discredit her even before she fled the country. “They deleted all my information and also they told people to spread rumours about me” apparently to ensure that no one took her reports seriousl