You're reading: Politico: Why the coronavirus lab leak theory won’t go away

It started out as a fringe conspiracy theory touted by Donald Trump. Now the suggestion that the deadly coronavirus was leaked from a laboratory in China is gaining both scientific and political traction. The latest tinder to ignite the flames of conspiracy came Thursday when it emerged that a top World Health Organization official leading investigations into the origins of the pandemic has described a version of the lab leak hypothesis as a “probable” scenario for how the virus began to spread.

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