COVID Lab Leak Theory Resurfaces After Controversial New Study

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Four years on from the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still contested. The most widely accepted hypothesis in the scientific community is that the virus naturally emerged from an animal source. However, there are others who believe that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

To add to this debate, a controversial new research paper from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has suggested that the available evidence points toward an unnatural origin for the virus. But many others are unconvinced.

"The study uses an established tool to show that an unnatural origin is as plausible, if not more plausible, than a natural origin and not a low-probability, fringe theory," the study's senior author, Chandini Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity and head of the Biosecurity Research Program at the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales, told Newsweek.

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