The Government is preparing to adjust its official view of Covid’s origins to fall in line with the growing international consensus that the virus spread as a result of a leak from a Wuhan laboratory.
The move follows an earlier report by the CIA that a leak was the most likely explanation.
In response to a question from Tory peer Lord Kempsell, health minister Baroness Merron said the Government ‘has noted the Central Intelligence Agency’s assessment and will continually review our own assessment of the origins of the virus, considering any new intelligence’.
The Mail on Sunday first revealed in April 2020 that intelligence experts believed that it had originated in a laboratory but it was publicly dismissed as ‘a conspiracy theory’.
The preferred theory – which was less likely to anger China – was that it was the result of ‘zoonotic’ animal-to-human transmission in a market.
The Mail on Sunday first revealed in April 2020 that intelligence experts believed that it had originated in a laboratory but it was publicly dismissed as ‘a conspiracy theory’ (Pictured: The P4 laboratory (centre left) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan)
The virus was quick to spread around the globe, leading to vaccinations (stock image)
In his recent memoir, Unleashed, Boris Johnson (pictured) said that he believed the virus started with a lab leak
In his recent memoir, Unleashed, Boris Johnson said that he believed it started with a lab leak.
He wrote: ‘The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made, in all its aspects.
‘It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of some botched experiment in a Chinese lab.’
