A landmark international study has offered compelling evidence that the coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic did not originate in Wuhan, China, challenging US President Donald Trump’s laboratory leak theory.
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The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell on May 7, was led by the University of Edinburgh and involved researchers from 20 institutions across the US, Europe, and Asia, including China.
The team analysed 167 bat coronavirus genomes and traced the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19 to bat populations in northern Laos and southwest China’s Yunnan province, where its most recent ancestor circulated five to seven years before the pandemic emerged.
The findings counter assertions by the White House, which claimed on a revamped government website in April that a Chinese lab leak was the “real source” of the Covid-19 pandemic. The website continues to display the headings “LAB LEAK”, “TRUTH”, and “ORIGIN” in bold capital letters.
Specifically, the researchers looked at the genomes of sarbecoviruses – coronaviruses that can cause severe respiratory illness. They include Sars-CoV-1, which was responsible for the 2002–2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak, and Sars-CoV-2, which caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Lead author Jonathan Pekar said the study showed that the original Sars-CoV-1 was circulating in western China just a year or two before Sars emerged in the southern province of Guangdong in late 2002.