Health official’s admission undermines Beijing’s dismissals that virus could have emerged from Wuhan facility

China investigated Covid lab leak claims, says top scientist

A top Chinese scientist has said China investigated whether Covid-19 might have originated in a Wuhan laboratory — the first admission from a senior official that Beijing took the so-called lab leak theory seriously after years of heated denials.
Professor George Gao, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a BBC Radio 4 podcast that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was checked by experts to see whether the facility could have been the source of the coronavirus pandemic.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Clive Cookson