For the lab leak theory to be true, SARS-CoV-2 must have been present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic started. But there’s not a single piece of data suggesting this.
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Articles on Wuhan Institute of Virology
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It’s more evidence a lab leak is very unlikely.
The sketchy history of international efforts to control bioweapons suggests that nations will resist cooperative monitoring of gene hacking for medical research.
A large proportion of scientific research on coronaviruses is carried out in countries with no oversight of experiments designed to make pathogens more deadly.
It could lend credibility to other conspiracy theories that also revolve around a laboratory origin for the virus.
Gain-of-function studies make a natural virus more dangerous or transmissible to humans. Could the Wuhan Institute of Virology be the source of SARS-CoV-2?
Top contributors
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Director, Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University
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Associate professor, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
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Senior Lecturer in Science and International Security and Co-Director Centre of the Centre for Science & Security Studies, King's College London
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Lecturer, Political Theory, University of Reading
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Associate Professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program, George Mason University
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Professor of the Practice of Politics and Crown Family Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University
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ARC Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor, University of Sydney
