DISINFO: The pandemic could have started due to a virus leak from a US laboratory
SUMMARY
Beijing is urging Washington to declassify information about what is happening in the US military biolaboratory in Fort Detrick. It is there that they work with dangerous pathogens, including coronavirus. In the vicinity of the base, outbreaks of some unknown and very complex diseases have already been recorded more than once.
Ebola, HIV, bubonic plague - why is the Pentagon secretly investigating the causative agents of the worst diseases? The Chinese Foreign Ministry asks the question in context. Fort Detrick has worked and continues to work with coronaviruses. In the Springfield Nursing Home, a gated community just an hour's drive from Fort Detrick, in July 2019 almost 100 people were struck by an unknown respiratory infection. A week later, a similar outbreak in another nursing home - in the town of Bark.
Less than a month after the onset of an incomprehensible disease in Fort Detrick, one of the laboratories was urgently closed. Is it COVID-19? The press got the letters of the country's chief infectious disease specialist, Anthony Fauci. In public, he talked about the natural mutation of the virus, but it turned out that in correspondence with colleagues, Fauci discussed clear signs of the laboratory origin of the coronavirus.
RESPONSE
The claim that the US is secretly developing biological weapons, including dangerous pathogens, in laboratories around the world is a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative that has been thoroughly debunked in this database. The COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020 was incorporated in this narrative, with pro-Kremlin outlets falsely claiming that the US was somehow involved in the development and leak of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists and medical experts is that SARS-CoV-2 has all the characteristics of a naturally occurring virus. Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies from reputable academic journals have shown substantial empirical evidence that the virus is naturally occurring. According to scientists, the molecular structure of the virus excludes the possibility that it was human-made.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is under the administration of Chinese authorities and not the US as the pro-Kremlin outlet claims, have referred to the conspiracy theory of a laboratory leak as “total fabrication”.
No evidence exists to support the Kremlin’s allegations about the development of biological weapons by the US in secret laboratories. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers and experts who have visited the sites in question and found nothing suspicious. In fact, most of these labs are actively engaged in fighting dangerous diseases and viruses, including COVID-19. Many of the labs are part of the US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP), which has previously been implemented in Russia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine with the approval of the host countries. The goal of the BTRP is to safeguard global health by preventing and containing the outbreak of infectious diseases and establishing high international standards in biological security. The president of the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, who is an expert on infectious diseases, has publicly discussed the details surrounding the natural occurrence of the virus and has expressed his professional opinion that it was most likely transferred to humans from bats.
See more disinformation narratives on COVID-19.