The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) laboratory is said by some to be the cause of the Corona virus, although there is no proof yet. What do foreign scientists who have worked there say?
Danielle Anderson, originally from Australia, is a virologist who has worked at WIV. In principle, he doubts that the Corona virus leaked from the laboratory and that the disease may have originated in nature. However, he admitted that he could not completely rule out the possibility of a leak.
Anderson, who researches bat viruses, was in the Wuhan lab in November 2019 as the only foreign researcher, when the coronavirus was on the verge of becoming a pandemic. Recently, the Wall Street Journal wrote a report that several researchers at WIV fell seriously ill in late 2019, raising suspicions that they were exposed to the Corona virus at the earliest.
But Anderson has his own opinion. "If a researcher gets sick, I assume I will get sick but I am not sick either. I was tested for Corona in Singapore before being vaccinated and never had the disease," he said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Anderson was of course in contact with several Wuhan lab workers and none of them fell ill with the Corona virus. Virus scientists also sometimes gossip if they suspect something, but at that time, there was no talk of a Corona virus leak.
"There was nothing unusual from my point of view that happened at that time that would make you think something was going on."
He added that the Wuhan laboratory operates like other similar laboratories. "Not that it's boring, but a regular lab that works just like any other high-security lab," he explained.
He also claimed that the security at the Wuhan laboratory is tight so that the virus does not leak. Water, air and waste must be sterile and filtered before leaving the premises. In other words, there is a small chance of virus leakage.
"I am not naive enough to completely disprove the lab leak theory. This pandemic is something that no one has ever imagined could be this big. The coronavirus is at the right place and time to cause this catastrophe," he said.
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