Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he believes the origin of SARS-CoV-2 should be at the heart of the “very expensive’ inquiry after Michael Gove gave credence to the idea that it came from a laboratory.
Speaking to GB News he said: “The Wuhan lab leak theory was once considered a loony-tune idea but now it seems to be the most probable source of the virus.
"In March 2020 a group of scientists penned an open letter condemning the ‘conspiracy theories’ suggesting the viruses origin was the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“It emerged later one of its key signatories, Peter Daszak, was head of the EcoHealth Alliance Research Group that worked directly with the Institute of virology.
“This was a clear conflict of interest. The then President Donald Trump echoed claims of the Wuhan lab leak theory and he was lambasted as a conspiracy theorist too, though he did sometimes give people that impression in other areas.
“His own chief scientist Anthony Fucci, undermined Trump, referring to a study on the jump of a species from an animal to a human.
“In February 2021 the World Health Organization suggested the lab leak theory was ‘extremely unlikely’, despite serious questions about the limited access permitted by the Chinese Communist Party for the investigation.
“It later emerged that American Federal funding was provided to the Wuhan Institute of virology for virus research. A dispute just took place between Senator Rand Paul and Anthony Fucci over whether funding could have been used to create COVID like viruses.
“And now we know that two US agencies, the Department of Energy and the FBI, have concluded with some confidence that the virus originated in a lab.
“The evidence clearly points to the likelihood that the virus came from a lab.
“In other words, the conspiracy theorists seemed to have been on the right track.
“We have the former Director of US National Intelligence claiming the reason government scientists were keen to dispel suggestions of a lab leak was because of their own personal links to the lab in question.
"But these problems extend to the UK. Michael Gove gave credence to the idea, but he was very quickly shot down.
“Why wasn’t the question of the lab leak theory included in the terms of reference of the inquiry, it’s the foundational question. Yet this very expensive inquiry just wants to conclude that we should have locked down sooner and more brutally.
“Anything that does not fit in with its predetermined narrative is excluded including the source of the virus. If we are to restore public trust in a post COVID world, the question of the lab leak must be at the forefront of the COVID inquiry and we must also ensure that lockdowns never happen again.”
