Top US Scientist Backtracks on ‘Smoking Gun’ COVID Lab Leak Theory
The QuintIn an email to the LA Times, Baltimore wrote, “ should have softened the phrase ‘smoking gun’ because I don’t believe that it proves the origin of the furin cleavage site but it does sound that way. “I believe that the question of whether the sequence was put in naturally or by molecular manipulation is very hard to determine but I wouldn’t rule out either origin.” In a conversation with Nature too, Baltimore clarified his stance, saying: “There are other possibilities and they need careful consideration, which is all I meant to be saying.” For most of 2020, many credible scientists and experts argued that the novel coronavirus was of natural origin. On Wednesday, 26 May, US President Joe Biden tasked the country’s intelligence authorities to “redouble” efforts for probing the origins of the novel coronavirus. Citing a US Intelligence report, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology had fallen sick as early as Autumn 2019 and had been to the hospital “with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.” This is noteworthy new information since China has said the first confirmed case only occurred on 8 December 2019.