Republicans in the US senate on Thursday presented a report on how Covid-19 virus could have started from a laboratory leak, although underscoring that the findings still lack indisputable evidence.
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The report is seen as an attempt by the Republican party to pressurise the Biden administration and congressional Democrats to take the Covid virus lab leak theory more seriously, reported Bloomberg.
The origin of the Covid-19 virus has become an increasingly partisan issue worldwide, with the investigation still on to find out its emergence with evidence. However, many scientists are in favor of the conclusion in a Science Magazine paper published in August that the virus jumped from animal to human in the crowded wet markets in Wuhan, China.
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“I worry because the crowd that is pushing this narrative is not motivated by scientific fact,” Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist, and scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told Bloomberg before reading the report.
Dr. Ebright, one of the interviewees quoted in the report, said he supported the argument that evidence pointed to a laboratory origin, reported New York Times. But the only new element in the report appeared to be questions raised about how China could have developed a vaccine so quickly, which the scientist did not find persuasive. Otherwise, he said, “there was no information in the report that has not been publicly presented in the media and discussed in the media previously.”
Richard Burr, the panel’s ranking member, said he hopes the report will guide the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international institutions and researchers.
“It is absolutely critical we learn the lessons from this pandemic so that we never find ourselves in a similar situation again,” said United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) chair Patty Murray. “I remain committed to passing the PREVENT Pandemics Act, which advanced out of Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support” she added.
(With agency inputs)