Downing Street blasts MI6’s chief’s ‘fanciful claims’ that coronavirus was man-made in Chinese lab

DOWNING Street has hit back over a former MI6 head’s claim that coronavirus was engineered in a Chinese lab and “started as an accident”.

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Number 10 has slammed Sir Richard Dearlove’s “fanciful” claim that he has seen an “important” new report which allegedly shows the virus didn’t emerge naturally.

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Sir Richard, who lead MI6 from 1999 to 2004, claimed during an interview on a Telegraph podcast that coronavirus was created by Chinese scientists before it accidentally leaked into the outside world.

He also said that the report could force China to pay “reparations” to the rest of the world for the death toll and economic hardship wrought by the virus.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman has dismissed Sir Richard’s comments, saying: “We’ve seen no evidence the virus is man-made.”

A Government official added: “These are fanciful claims. World leading scientists in the UK, US and the World Health Organisation have said numerous times that the virus was natural in its origin.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has also rebuked Sir Dearlove’s claims, saying there is “no evidence” to back the lab-grown theory.

The lab theory has been around since the virus broke out last December, and has only been amplified by Beijing’s refusal to allow foreign investigators into Wuhan – ground zero.

Sir Richard isn’t the only high ranking UK spy to field the theory that it was man made.

Senior military and intelligence expert, Col. Richard Kemp, told The Mirror that he was tipped off about a warfare facility near Wuhan by a senior foreign intelligence source, who said analysts “strongly suspected” China’s virology unit.

The former anti-bio-terrorism specialist and commander of British troops in Afghanistan said: “It is very likely to be the case. I was also led to believe governments were very unlikely to come out and say it outright, but that China had been made aware that intelligence agencies had significant evidence.”

Col Kemp added “The virus came from an animal that had been involved in testing in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and had ended up in the wet market.

“It was believed then and now that an unscrupulous member of staff sold it for personal profit without considering it may be infected. That is how it got out.”, referring to the theory as “known to be true but cannot be backed up by absolute evidence”.

AP:Associated Press

A former spy chief claims Covid-19 didn’t occur naturally in the wild, but may have been created instead by Chinese scientists[/caption]

International scientists and British security agencies officially believe the virus emerged in animals – most likely bats or pangolins – before jumping to the human population in a Wuhan wet market.

But Sir Richard says a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team suggests key elements of Covid-19’s genetic sequences were “inserted” and may not have evolved naturally.

He said: “It raises the issue, if China ever were to admit responsibility, does it pay reparations?

“I think it will make every country in the world rethink how it treats its relationship with China.”

Sir Richard suggested scientists may have been conducting secret gene-splicing experiments on bat coronaviruses when Covid-19 somehow escaped through a lapse in biosecurity.

“It’s a risky business if you make a mistake,” he said.

Sir Richard said he’s read peer-reviewed research produced by top academics at St George’s Hospital at the University of London and Norwegian virologists.

The paper claims that there are ‘inserted sections’ in the DNA of the virus, and warns that current efforts to develop a vaccine are doomed – because the virus has been misunderstood.

AFP or licensors

Some have claimed the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology[/caption]

Reuters

Sir Richard says it could raise questions about how China will compensate affected countries[/caption]

Sir Richard called the study a “very important contribution to a debate which is now starting” about how the virus evolved and then turned into a pandemic.

The paper has been rewritten several times, and an earlier version apparently claimed coronavirus could correctly be called the “Wuhan virus”.

The earlier version, seen by The Telegraph, claimed to have proven “beyond all reasonable doubt that the Covid-19 virus is engineered.”

One of the authors, John Fredrik Moxnes, asked for his name to be withdrawn from the research, throwing its credibility into doubt.

London academics have also dismissed its conclusions, it is understood.

But the remaining authors claim the virus has “unique fingerprints” that cannot have evolved naturally.

The paper has not yet been accepted for publication in any scientific journal.

The Chinese government has always insisted that the outbreak began in a “wet market” in the city of Wuhan late last year.

Two laboratories in Wuhan studying bat coronaviruses – the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control – have been suggested as the possible true sources of the outbreak.

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AFP or licensors

Lockdown has lifted in Wuhan – but the city has changed hugely, with extensive medical checks now part of life[/caption]

Reuters

Most scientists believe the Covid-19 outbreak began at a wet market in the city[/caption]

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