Covid-19 was leaked from a Chinese lab in a "cover up" that's been slammed as "worse than Watergate", it has been claimed in a new book on the pandemic.
The first case of the novel coronavirus was reported in Wuhan back in December 2019, and the mainstream theory has since been that the virus had natural origins around the city, perhaps in the 'wet market'.
But almost two years on - and more than 4.7million deaths since the pandemic broke out across the world - author and investigative journalist Sharri Markson said there is evidence the virus was leaked.
According to the Sydney-based author of What Really Happened in Wuhan, her research and interviews corroborate the theory that the outbreak accidentally slipped from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, a claim China has always vehemently denied.
Some of those first infected with coronavirus in October 2019 "now appear difficult to track down", John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, said, according to inews.
The alleged disappearance of Wuhan lab worker Huang Yanling in January has only served to fuel speculation of a cover-up.
Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove said the "weight of evidence" suggests Covid leaked from a lab but doesn't believe it was ever intentional.
"If you look at the evidence coldly, the likelihood is this is an escape from a laboratory, and it's up to the Chinese to demonstrate conclusively to us that it isn't, not just to tell us," he told Markson.
He added: "I'm not saying they deliberately released it, I'm saying this is a Chinese accident but there was a cover-up from day one."
Robert O'Brien, Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor, echoed this as he called for "international supervision" of China's laboratory research.
"I always thought whether it was the wet market or the lab was somewhat immaterial given the history of past health crises; they keep coming out of China and affecting the entire globe," he said.
