COVID-19 origin: British intelligence services call Wuhan lab leak theory 'feasible'

The British intelligence services reportedly believe that it is “feasible” that the pandemic began after the COVID-19 virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. According to Sunday Times, the UK agents are investigating a possible leak from the Wuhan  Institute of Virology. Even though British, American and other western intelligence agencies had appeared to discount the possibility of a lab leak, they now said that there has been a reassessment and further deemed the possibility as “feasible”. 

The report said that the development, which Beijing has repeatedly denied, has prompted the US diplomatic sources to share their concerns “we are one wet market or bio lab away from the next spillover”. UK MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, told the media outlet that the “silence coming from Wuhan is troubling”. Tugendhat said that Britain needs to open the crypt and see what happened to be able to protect everyone in the future, which means starting an investigation, along with partners around the world and in the WHO. 

When asked about the speculation that the virus could have escaped from a Wuhan lab, UK Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News that he thinks it is “really important” that the WHO is allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered into the origins of the pandemic. “we should leave no stone unturned to understand why,” Nadhim said. 

Wuhan lab leak theory 

It is imperative to note that lab-leak theory, initially trotted out by former US President Donald Trump then dismissed as "highly unlikely" by a delayed World Health Organization mission to China, has resurfaced in recent days. China rejects the theory the virus may have emerged from a virology lab in Wuhan. It has instead accused the US of peddling "conspiracies" and politicising the pandemic.

But the intensifying probe into COVID-19 origins globally holds relevance days after a previously undisclosed and controversial Wall Street report propelled conspiracies claiming three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care after they fell sick in November 2019. This was a month prior to Beijing's opening report of COVID-like symptoms in a patient. Fueling speculation on COVID-19 lab leak theory, the confidential US report read, "The US government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness”. 

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