iStock/da-kuk(NEW YORK) — The theory about COVID-19 being developed in a Chinese lab has been debunked by virologists, with officials taking aim at a recent allegation made by researchers from Britain and Norway.
The British/Norway team at St. George’s, University of London is one of many labs in the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The team recently wrote a report claiming that the RNA sequence in the coronavirus appeared to be artificial or man-made, so their vaccine would take that into account.
The paper also claimed that vaccines would fail to treat COVID-19 because the virus contained man-made components.
Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D., professor of virology at Columbia University, has since called the research paper “nonsense” and that “The manuscript is replete with incorrect science.”
The virology professor told ABC News, “It is absolutely 100% impossible that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory. The elements in the virus, SARS-CoV-2, all came from bat SARS-like CoVs that circulate in nature.”
There’s overwhelming consensus that COVID-19 occurred naturally, in nature, and was not the product of mankind. Despite the constant debunking, several politicians have latched onto the theory that COVID-19 was developed in a Chinese laboratory.
Robert Garry, Ph.D., virologist at Tulane University, said “No scientist or group of scientists created this virus in a laboratory. That would require insight into [viral] pathogenesis and protein engineering that does not exist.”
Garry added that the components found in COVID-19 were discovered in other genetic material sampled from animals.
