The Guardian and Independent are desperate to suppress the theory that SARS-Cov-2 emerged as a result of an accidental escape from a laboratory in Wuhan were coronaviruses are being studied.
It is undisputed that there are two labs in Wuhan which have been studying such viruses. One is a level 4 (the highest level) bio-security lab. This lab has been conducting significant amount of research into coronaviruses – of the same kind as SARS-Cov-2. One of its researchers is known for travelling to a location several hundred kilometers away where the horseshoe bats which are thought to be the primary animal source for the virus live. She collects samples and brings them back to her lab in Wuhan. The lab is just 8 miles from the live animal market in Wuhan which is claimed as the origin of the virus.
It is entirely plausible to consider the possibility that the virus escaped from this lab. The fact that the director of the lab has said on social media that “she swears on her life” that the virus was not an escapee from her lab is neither here nor there.
There is no serious evidence that de facto discounts this theory. This is why the liberal press are having to discredit it by calling it a “conspiracy theory”. (Here is an example of this – by the Guardian’s Science Editor). As the Science Editor does in the linked article they are saying that “scientists have agreed that the virus was not produced by genetic engineering therefore the lab theory is a conspiracy theory”. But this is an attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes; that the virus is not the result of genetic engineering does not mean (to even the slightest degree) that the virus was not a natural product which simply escaped from the lab due to poor security. In January 2018 a team of visiting American scientists raised security concerns about this lab. The Chinese have not allowed the Americans to come to the lab and investigate it since SARS-Cov-2. The lab theory is anything but a conspiracy theory.
Why is the liberal press trying to shoot down this theory? (And resorting to lies to do so). Because the liberal media classes are ideologically driven. This theory challenges the ideology of globalisation – because if proven or even if widely accepted – the “right” could, and possibly would, use it to bring in a new era of protectionism. (A secondary factor is probably racial; the progressive-liberal ideology is so focussed on racial integration that anything which appeals to people who are “anti-Chinese” or which could play into such a mood has to be rejected out of hand as a matter of principle, again, regardless of the truth of any facts which any xenophobic views could reference).
So – this unscientific attempt to discredit the lab theory prior to an investigation reflects the wider struggle between the liberal-progressive ideology and the “populist” and rightist ideology of Donald Trump.