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However, according to Jonna Mazet, professor of epidemiology and ecology of the disease at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, California, it is highly unlikely, for various reasons, that Covid-19 has been accidentally released from a laboratory in China.
“I know that we are working together to develop a very strict safety protocol, and it is highly unlikely that this is a laboratory accident,” Mazet told Business Insider.
Mazet led a U.S.-funded pandemic early warning program called PREDICT, which stopped just a few months before Covid-19 was detected in China. The project provides money and training for virologists around the world, including in Wuhan, the city where Covid-19 was first detected in December 2019.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology houses China’s first Tier 4 Biosafety Laboratory, a rare type of laboratory dealing with the world’s most dangerous pathogens, with the highest level of biocontrol.
Mazet said some of the reasons why the virus did not originate from a laboratory in Wuhan. First, Mazet said he had spoken to Shi Zhengli, a leading Wuhan investigator, who was investigating the Corona virus. Mazet said Zhengli was absolutely certain that he had never identified this virus before the outbreak.
Second, he said that Wuhan virologists used extreme personal protective equipment and only studied samples that had been deactivated using chemicals, while containers with “active” viruses were stored in special areas.
He also noted that some visitors to bat habitat, such as tourists and poachers, roam poorly protected areas with a high risk of contracting the virus, unlike virus experts who collect samples using protective gear.
(esn)
