China's Top Virologist Speaks Out Against Origin Of Covid-19; Denies 'Lab Leak' Theory

Dr. Shi Zhengli denied that her institution was to blame for the health disaster. She said that World is constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist.

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In a rare statement to the media, Dr. Shi Zhengli denied that her institution was to blame for the health disaster. The Chinese scientist at the centre of theories that the coronavirus pandemic was caused by a leak from her specialised lab in Wuhan has denied that her institution was to blame for the health disaster.

“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” Dr. Shi Zhengli told the New York Times. “I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist,” she told the U.S. daily.

Last month, US President Joe Biden directed intelligence agencies to look into the origins of the pandemic, including the lab leak theory. The leak theory had been floated earlier during the global outbreak, including by Mr. Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, but it was widely dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

However, it has recently gained traction, fueled by reports that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill after visiting a bat cave in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan in 2019.

Dr. Shi is an expert in bat coronaviruses, and some scientists believe she may have been leading “gain-of-function” experiments, in which scientists increase the strength of a virus to better study its effects on hosts.

According to the New York Times, Dr. Shi and her colleagues at the Wuhan laboratory published a report on an experiment in 2017 “in which they created new hybrid bat coronaviruses by mixing and matching parts of several existing ones — including at least one that was nearly transmissible to humans — in order to study their ability to infect and replicate in human cells.”

Dr. Shi, however, stated in an email to the paper that her experiments differed from gain-of-function experiments in that they did not seek to make a virus more dangerous. Instead, they were attempting to figure out how the virus could jump between species.

“My lab has never conducted or cooperated in conducting GOF experiments that enhance the virulence of viruses,” she added.