Covid-19 likely leaked from lab, say US and German researchers
Researchers have revealed more about the possible origins of the pandemic, as a once common Covid symptom is dropped from the list.
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The coronavirus was likely made in a lab, according to a bombshell study on the possible origins of the pandemic.
Researchers in the US and Germany compared Covid’s genome to dozens of previously detected coronaviruses and found “peculiar patterns”, which they say are hallmark signs that the virus was manufactured.
The team described it as having a “synthetic fingerprint”.
The scientists, including Dr Alex Washburne from Montana-based research institute Selva Analytics and Professor Antonius VanDongen, a pharmacology expert at Duke University, in North Carolina examined the SARS-CoV-2 genome — the virus’ genetic material.
The team also included Valentin Bruttel, a German immunologist.
Dr Washburne, a mathematical biologist, said the lab leak theory can’t be ruled out based on the results of his controversial study.
However, his team did not identify which lab was the source of the outbreak and insisted that the virus looks more “like an accident” rather than a “bioweapon”.
Some experts called the results “troubling”, while other slammed the study for being “deeply flawed” and “poorly controlled”.
Most leading virologists believe the coronavirus jumped to humans from an infected animal, potentially in the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Others think it leaked from a laboratory — either deliberately or accidentally — in the same city.
Whether or not it was deliberate or accidental is an even more contentious part of the ‘lab leak’ theory.
Scientists argue it is vital to find out the origins of the virus, but many doubt the root source of the pandemic will ever be uncovered.
It comes as a once common Covid symptom has been removed from the symptom list on a major app used by millions in the UK.
Fewer people are experiencing a fever with Covid than ever before, the ZOE Symptom Tracker app has revealed.
Professor Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, said: “It really is a complete waste of everyone’s time to be screening workplaces and care homes … for fever at the moment.”
Just last month, 43 per cent of all people who had Covid in the UK reported having a fever, The Sun reports.
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