There is no evidence that coronavirus originated in the laboratory

In the last few days the alleged news is spreading in Italy that the new coronavirus – discovered a few weeks ago in China and whose characteristics are still little known – was created in a laboratory of the Chinese government, located in the city of Wuhan (epicenter of the contagion) and that would be linked to a secret bacteriological weapons program.

To date, based on the information reported by the Italian media and the verifications conducted by several other fact-checkers, however, there is no evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Let’s see why.

What does the Wuhan laboratory have to do with it

One of the first to speak in Italy of the thesis that the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory was the director of TgCom24 Paolo Liguori, who on January 25, 2020 said on TV that he “had news from a very reliable source” according to which “It all stems from the Wuhan laboratory, a laboratory that Western magazines have already been interested in in the past.”

During the live broadcast, Liguori showed viewers an online article from the scientific journal Nature, of February 22, 2017, which would speak of a laboratory in the city of Wuhan where “the most dangerous and deadly viruses are studied”.

“In recent years, this Wuhan laboratory, as reported by these sources, has also begun military experiments, covered by the greatest secret, the greatest confidentiality,” said Liguori. «A technician, in early December [2019, n.d.R.], it would have come into contact with the virus, they didn’t notice it, it spread rapidly ».

As explained, among others, the 2017 Nature article cited by Liguori and a May 2019 report by the United States Centers for disease control and prevention (Cdc, the US public health control body), it is true that in the city of Wuhan there is the National Bio-safety Laboratory, but nowhere is reference to accusations towards “secret” programs to develop “bacteriological weapons”.

According to the CoC report, in 2017 this laboratory (which has a level 4 of bio-safety, the highest for the study of dangerous pathogens, like others around the world) received the certifications to operate in the field of research. The specialized training of the staff was the result of international cooperation, which involved exchanges with scientists from universities in France, the United States and Australia.

As explained by a report from the 2017 World Health Organization, the Wuhan laboratory was the result in particular of a memorandum of understanding with France, which actively participated in the implementation of the project, following compliance with international safety standards.

To date, therefore, there is no evidence that behind the spread of the coronavirus there is a human error within this laboratory. It is, therefore, one of the false and misleading information that has been circulated in Italy since we started talking about the 2019-nCoV coronavirus (here, here, here and here other cases we have dealt with).

What the “biological weapons expert” really says

Several Italian media that published this alleged news cited the interview given to an American newspaper by an “expert”, but as we will see this interview – and the newspaper that published it – is far from reliable.

From The messenger to Free, passing through ICTY is The newspaper, several Italian media have taken up an article of 24 January 2020 published by Washington Times (not to be confused with the most authoritative Washington Post, as we will see further below), which shows some quotation marks by Dani Shoham, identified as a “bacteriological weapons expert” and “former Israeli military intelligence officer”.

According to reports from the Washington Times, according to Shoham “some laboratories of the Wuhan research center have probably been involved, in terms of development and research, in the study of biological weapons, at least collaterally, not as the main structure”.

In fact, Shoham is an expert in biological weapons, but contacted via email by fact-checker Pavel Bannikov (of the Kazakh fact-checking site factcheck.kz) specified that he told al Washington Times that “to date there is no evidence that there has been an accident” through which the virus has spread.

Not only that: “The whole infection could obviously have a natural origin, as it seems to be the most likely way at the moment,” Shoham said by email to Bannikov. “We need more information to really find out how this virus was born.”

In essence, it is Shoham himself who reiterates what was said previously, that there is no evidence to claim that the new coronavirus was produced – and then voluntarily spread, and by accident – by a Wuhan laboratory. The same expert said that the natural origin of the infection is “the most likely way”.

What is the Washington Times

The newspaper that published the news, more generally, then has a reliability problem. As its official website explains, the was founded in 1982 by the Korean preacher Sun Myung Moon, leader of the religious movement of the Unification Church born in South Korea in 1954.

Over the years the magazine has been accused of not being impartial and of paying little attention to correcting its mistakes.

According to the classification made by Media bias / fact check, website that tries to evaluate the quality of online and traditional information based on the most objective analysis criteria possible, the Washington Times it is one of the publications whose contents mostly reflect a conservative and center-right ideology.

The past editorial choices of Washington Times they demonstrated on several occasions a lack of attention to the reality and official information.

For example, on 4 December 2018 a scientific-themed article was published – a sector in which the news of the coronavirus also falls as a bacteriological weapon created in the laboratory – in which a conspiracy theory on climate change was promoted. It read that “global warming and therefore the narrative on climate change were developed by America’s opponents to allow our enemies to dominate us to the end.” As verified by fellow fact-checkers from Climate Feedbackin the past, the magazine has published scientific-themed articles with “very low”, “misleading” and “disagreement with elementary science” credibility.

In recent years then the Washington Times he also shared false or misleading news about Barack Obama, falsely accused of spending millions of dollars to go golfing with Tiger Woods, or about a church in Virginia accused without foundation of wanting to remove a plaque dedicated to George Washington (actually the controversy related to Southern General Robert E. Lee).

In conclusion

There is no evidence that the new coronavirus that is spreading these days was born in a Chinese bacteriological weapons laboratory. In fact, there is a laboratory in Wuhan in the field of biosafety: the connection was made by an expert interviewed by an American newspaper of poor reliability. The same expert later said that his was only a speculative hypothesis and that natural diffusion remains the most likely option. The alleged news of the human and “secret” origin of the virus has, however, received a lot of diffusion in recent days, in Italy and beyond.