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There is no scientific evidence supporting the theory that the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, and more recent, peer-reviewed studies strongly suggest that the virus evolved in nature, a group of scientists wrote in the Lancet on Monday.
The authors are the same researchers who in February 2020 dismissed the lab leak idea as a conspiracy theory — also in the Lancet, one of Britain’s most prestigious medical journals.
“We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence in the scientific literature is that the virus evolved in nature, while suggestions of a laboratory-leak source of the pandemic remain without scientifically validated evidence that directly supports it in peer-reviewed scientific journals,” the authors wrote Monday.
“Allegations and conjecture are of no help,” they continued. “New viruses can emerge anywhere. … It is time to turn down the heat of the rhetoric and turn up the light of scientific inquiry.”
Here are some significant developments:
- Japan will extend its “quasi-state of emergency” covering Tokyo through the Olympics, the Nikkei newspaper reported. The measures had been set to expire July 11, but the coronavirus caseload remains relatively high, and the vast majority of the population is unvaccinated.
- Israel said Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine offered less protection against infection from the coronavirus than previously seen, although it remains highly effective at preventing severe disease. The new data come as the country grapples with a wave of delta variant cases.
- Germany is loosening restrictions on people entering from Britain, India, Portugal and Russia. Fully inoculated travelers from those countries will not have to quarantine; people who are not vaccinated will have to quarantine for five days if they test negative for the virus.
- Australia’s New South Wales reported 18 new locally transmitted cases on Tuesday. Sydney, the state’s most populous city, remains in a lockdown that could end Friday.
- Boris Johnson on Monday announced that England was set to end virtually all government mandates to control the spread of the coronavirus, telling people that in two weeks it would probably be completely up to them whether to wear a mask or socially distance.
The letter in the Lancet was signed by two dozen biologists, ecologists, epidemiologists, physicians, public health experts and veterinarians. Western nations led by the United States have ramped up calls for further inquiry into the origins of the virus, including the possibility that it escaped from a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases were reported in December 2019.
The researchers said in the Lancet that they support “scientifically rigorous investigations” and welcome recent calls by the Group of Seven leaders of industrialized nations for a “timely, transparent, expert-led” study that would follow the joint investigation by teams of international and Chinese government scientists earlier this year.
That inquiry, which was convened by the World Health Organization, concluded that a lab leak was unlikely. The United States and other outside observers, however, expressed concern about the way the investigation was carried out and called for more transparency from China.
Katerina Ang in Singapore contributed to this report.
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