New wave: US Congress accused China of creating coronavirus
The US Congress announced the results of a two-year investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strain, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. According to the report, the coronavirus pathogen with a high degree of probability appeared in the laboratory of the Chinese city of Wuhan. To prove this hypothesis, lawmakers cited five arguments and emphasized that the coronavirus has biological characteristics that were not found in nature. Previously, the US at various levels repeatedly accused China of creating the virus. At the same time, back in 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claimed that the U.S. military brought the covid to Wuhan. Read more about the results of the American investigation and whether the coronavirus is artificial - in the material "Izvestia".
New US report: what was the source of the coronavirus
U.S. Congressmen published a new report, which contains the results of a two-year investigation into the causes of a pandemic of deadly coronavirus. The documents say that COVID-19 is most likely to be of laboratory origin. Researchers claim the virus spread as a result of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. It is argued that the leak could have been caused by an accident or because of research being conducted in the lab.
The congressmen presented five arguments in support of the hypothesis, noting that the virus has biological traits that scientists have not previously seen in nature. Also, the report states that all cases of covidomas arose from a single entry into the human body, while during other pandemics several cases of transmission were recorded.
In addition, the congress highlighted the fact that Wuhan is home to one of the main research laboratories specializing in the study of SARS viruses, the causative agents of respiratory diseases. The report claims that this laboratory has a history of operating under low levels of biosafety, including documented instances of mandatory labeling of drugs, solutions and substances, as well as insufficient protective equipment.
"Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) contracted the COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before it was discovered on the market in wild animals. By all standards of science, if there was evidence of natural origin, it would have already appeared," the report's authors concluded.
As a result, the authors of the report said that the Chinese government, agencies in the U.S. government and some members of the international community sought to hide the true origin of the coronavirus that caused the pandemic.
Note that accusations against China emerged from the early days of the pandemic in late 2019.
And in 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made a sensational statement: the official claimed that the coronavirus could have been brought to the city of Wuhan by the US military. Military expert Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Commission on Biological and Chemical Weapons, noted that this version has its own grounds.
Coronavirus came from the market: another theory of origin
At the end of September 2024, American and European scientists said that Wuhan's Huangan seafood market was the initial hotbed of the coronavirus. The corresponding article with conclusions was published in the scientific journal Cell.
Closed Huangan Seafood Market
According to the study, the Chinese market sold, among other things, mammals capable of contracting the coronavirus. These included bamboo rats and raccoon dogs, as well as Malayan porcupines, Asian badgers and Amur hedgehogs. Biomaterial samples were taken from the animals for analysis, the results of which confirmed that the animals were indeed infected.
The infected mammals were sold at a market in Wuhan in December 2019. At the same time, most of the stalls where these animals were illegally traded were located in the western part of the market. It was there that the first cases of the disease were recorded.
What is the situation with coronavirus today in Russia and the world
The COVID-19 disease outbreak, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, first occurred in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. Within months, the virus spread to other countries. In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the coronavirus had become a pandemic due to the sheer scale of spread.
After a slight downturn in June 2022, there was a renewed trend of increasing new infections worldwide. In most European countries, coronavirus spread peaked in July.
By early 2023, many countries had lifted mask and other restrictions on coronavirus, and some nations had reclassified COVID-19 as seasonal influenza. Over the years, many new, mutated strains of covid have emerged. These were claimed to be more contagious but had lower lethality.
In September 2024, WHO published a report on the situation with the incidence of coronavirus in the world. According to analytical data, at the end of summer, 238 thousand new cases of COVID-19 were registered in 91 countries and about 4.4 thousand deaths in 35 states.
According to Rospotrebnadzor, more than 31.4 thousand cases of the coronavirus were registered in Russia in the last week of November, which was 7.4% higher than a week earlier.
In total, there have been more than 776 million confirmed cases and more than 7 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic. Today, spikes in the incidence of the disease are observed mainly after mass events. For example, at least 40 athletes were infected at the last Olympic Games in Paris.
