Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Canards, Nature Is Smart Enough to Do the Job

On January 24, The Washington Times quoted Dany Shoham, who raised the possibility that the coronavirus was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Hubei Province, where the epidemic began. Shoham is a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University and a former lieutenant colonel in Military Intelligence’s research department, where he specialized in chemical and biological warfare.

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“In principle, outward virus infiltration might take place either as leakage or as an indoor unnoticed infection of a person that normally went out of the concerned facility,” Shoham told The Washington Times. “This could have been the case with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but so far there isn’t evidence or indication for such.”

He noted that the virology institute operated under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but some of its laboratories “have linkage with the PLA or BW-related elements within the Chinese defense establishment” – the PLA is the Chinese military; BW stands for biological weapons. 

Based on his remarks, American attorney Larry Klayman, a right-wing Republican activist who has been called a serial litigant – he once sued his own mother – filed a class-action suit in federal court  against the Chinese government for $20 billion. 

As far as is known, Shoham is the first and one of the few observers to raise the possibility that a leak or work accident released the coronavirus. No official source, intelligence service or covert biological research institute has made such an assessment.

Most experts believe that this is a natural virus, not one that was genetically engineered in a lab. They accept the thesis of the Chinese virologists who the day before Shoham’s interview was published announced that they had cracked the genetic code of the virus responsible for the current pandemic. The research into the code showed that this virus is related to the one that caused the SARS epidemic and is similar to the one that caused MERS, which was spread by camels. 

According to experts, the sources of the coronavirus infection were bats and snakes that were sold at seafood markets in China. According to this assessment, the virus underwent a mutation before it infected humans.