Covid-19 may have originated in US bio-lab, says Jeffry Sachs

Renowned academic negates WHO's claims, says virus not a natural spillover

The SARS-CoV-2 that caused the Covid-19 pandemic did not break out of natural reasons, instead came “out of a US lab biotechnology”, claimed renowned economist and policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs.

According to a report published in Russia Today, Sachs remarks came at a conference hosted by the Spanish think tank the GATE Center in mid-June. The former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University negated the results of the World Health Organisation (WHO)-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease.

The WHO had said on June 9 that its latest investigation into the origins of Covid-19 was inconclusive, largely because data from China was missing, another blow to its years-long effort to determine how the pandemic began.

However, Sachs has claimed that as he chairs the Covid-19 commission at the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, he had more information on the matter. “It is a blunder, in my view, of biotech, not an accident of a natural spillover,” he said.

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“We don’t know for sure,” he said, but nonetheless held that there was “enough evidence” to posit a further probe into the matter, even though it is “not being investigated, not in the United States, not anywhere.”

It may be noted that earlier in May, Sachs, together with Neil Harrison, had published an article that called for “an independent inquiry into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It alleged that “that there is much important information that can be gleaned from US-based research institutions, information not yet made available for independent, transparent, and scientific scrutiny.”

On June 10, CBS News reported that the WHO is recommending in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is required into whether a lab accident may be to blame.