Dr David Asher says reward should be offered to expose wuhan covid lab leak theory

A former lead investigator into the origins of covid says that a huge cash incentive should be offered to Wuhan scientists to break ranks.

Workers next to a cage with mice (R) inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province.

Donald Trump’s former lead investigator into the origins of Covid-19 has told 7:30 that a huge reward is what is needed to encourage Chinese scientists to come forward.

David Asher, who worked for former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, said while China kept a tight grip in its people a cash incentive may be the way to unlock some crucial information.

“How about $15 million to the first scientist out of the Wuhan Institute [of Virology] that defects to the United States or Australia?” Dr Asher told 7:30.

“There’s a way to play the Cold War smart. I got lots of Chinese who I’ve spoken to. They’ve risked their lives probably to talk to us. But they’re willing to do that.

“Just because they have a totalitarian communist state that’s celebrating a 100th anniversary as a party, doesn’t mean that they are impenetrable, doesn’t mean we can’t figure out what happened.”

Dr David Asher.

Dr Asher believes it is possible Covid-19 leaked from a lab.

Dr Asher told a congressional hearing that it is his belief the virus leaked from a lab and “they covered it up”.

“I think this was a lab disaster, a bio meltdown,” he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the lab leak theory is still a possibility despite its own investigations showing it “extremely unlikely”.

The view shows the P4 laboratory building at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.

WHO says it is still most likely that the virus came from animals and spread to humans.

China has repeatedly and angrily rejected the lab-leak theory.

Dr Asher has hit out against a group of medical experts dismissing a covid lab leak as a “conspiracy theory”, saying it can’t be ruled out “unless you’ve gone into the lab and look for the leak.”

Originally published as Dr David Asher says reward should be offered to expose wuhan covid lab leak theory