The Chinese virologist who, in the terrible months of the Covid pandemic, was in charge of the Chinese response to the crisis, does not rule out that the origin of everything was a virus leak from the Wuhan laboratory. He told the Bbcand his is in fact the most explicit admission by the Chinese that something anomalous could have happened, even if the Beijing government has always flatly denied that the disease could have originated in the research center.
An internationally renowned immunologist and virologist, Professor George Gao was the head of the China Center for Disease Control and played a key role in the response to the pandemic and efforts to trace its origins. In an interview for the podcast of the BBC Radio 4, Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s OriginProfessor Gao said that one can “always suspect anything: it’s science, nothing should be excluded.”
A vice chairman of the China Natural Science Foundation since leaving the CDC last year, Gao also added that the Chinese government has conducted a kind of formal investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “The government is planning something,” she admitted (although the inquiry did not involve her department); and when asked if there had been a formal search of the laboratory – one of the best Chinese national laboratories, known for working on the study of coronaviruses for years – he confirmed that the facility “has been checked by industry experts”. It is the first acknowledgment from a Chinese source that there has been some kind of official investigation: Gao has not seen the results of the investigation but says he understands that the laboratory has been promoted. “I think their conclusion is that they follow all the protocols. They found no wrongdoing.”