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That a pandemic caused by a bat coronavirus started in the city with the world’s largest programme of research into bat coronaviruses was always intriguing. That among the first people to get ill with covid-like symptoms in the month the pandemic began were three scientists working in that lab was highly suspicious. That now we […]

As a US Senate committee’s full, 300-page report on the origin of covid now makes clear, a whole string of clues now points towards a laboratory accident as the probable cause of the covid pandemic.   For example, there is: evidence of a biosafety crisis at the lab in the autumn of 2019; the Chinese […]

British institutions beholden to China or concerned about the effect on science appear uninterested in investigating the lab leak hypothesis     As a US Senate committee’s full, 300-page report on the origin of covid now makes clear, a whole string of clues now points towards a laboratory accident as the probable cause of the […]

There is new evidence pointing to the origin of Covid being in the seafood market in Wuhan. That, at least, is the substance of a breathless piece published in the Atlantic. Specifically, Katherine Wu, the journalist who wrote the piece, had evidence suggesting that ‘raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying […]

Despite Chinese obstruction and denial, the world is coming round to the idea that the origin of the pandemic might be traced to a Wuhan laboratory. Little wonder — the clues have been there all along   By Matt Ridley   It is not clear why the US government chose this week to drop not […]

The Department of Energy in the United States, which has responsibility for a network of national scientific research laboratories, has changed its mind. It now thinks it likely the pandemic began in a Chinese laboratory, not in a seafood market, on the basis of new evidence it has seen.   It has not divulged what […]

Sweden’s refusal to impose compulsory shutdowns has now, by contrast, been completely vindicated We will never know how many people are dying of covid in China. The regime will probably cook the statistical books. The chief executive of an asset management firm in China shared an image last week of a document at a mortuary […]

Three years after the pandemic began, we still don’t know the origin of COVID. A strange lack of curiosity has stifled the debate. KEY TAKEAWAYS The “lab leak” hypothesis for the origin of COVID has been fueled by a continuous trickle of new revelations, many of them driven by freedom of information requests or leaks. A […]

The Lancet Commission is the latest to highlight how seeking the truth has come second to other considerations   The Lancet Commission into “lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic”, written by 40 scientists and public health experts, and chaired by the economist Jeffrey Sachs, has concluded that “the origin of the virus remains […]

The revised and expanded paperback edition of my newest book, Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19, co-authored with the brilliant scientist Alina Chan, is now available to purchase in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. It was a privilege to help Alina write Viral, and a privilege to create this […]