Expert says COVID lab leak theory 'purely politically motivated'

BERLIN - A zoonoses expert said that a laboratory leak as the possible origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is "purely politically motivated", and political power games are behind the theory.

The expert, Fabian Leendertz, who had participated in the World Health Organization's (WHO) search for the origin of the coronavirus, told German Press Agency recently that "there are no new data that would strengthen the laboratory hypothesis that I am aware of. It remains the most unlikely hypothesis of all."

He emphasized that transmission was most likely via intermediate hosts that may have contracted the virus from bats, perhaps a wildlife farm, where a high density of insects also attracts bats.