In addition to criticizing the findings of the World Health Organization’s investigation in China, a group of 18 scientists have published a letter in the journal Science stating that not enough proof exists yet to rule out the probability that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. From The Wall Street Journal:

“In a letter published Thursday in the journal Science, an international group of 18 biologists, immunologists and other scientists criticized the findings of a report released in March by a World Health Organization-led team who investigated the pandemic’s origin. The WHO also called for a more extensive evaluation of the two leading hypotheses: that the pandemic virus entered the human population and began spreading after escaping from a lab or after jumping to humans from infected animals.

The WHO-led team, which included scientists from China and several other countries, reported no definitive proof of either hypothesis. Yet, the scientists wrote, the team nevertheless concluded that an animal origin for the pandemic was the likelier scenario and devoted only four out of the report’s 313 pages to the possibility of a lab accident.

…”A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest.””

Experienced virologists with bat viruses are among the letter’s signatories and it also included a blistering appraisal the World Health Organization’s investigation of the coronavirus’s beginnings that Chinese officials were constantly monitoring. All of this comes about after the publication of Nicholas Wade’s article positing the lab-leak theory as the likely origin of COVID-19.

It is very possible Wade’s essay, hopefully, may have spurned these and other scientists to finally speak out. It is abundantly clear that, fortunately, the lab-leak theory is starting to gain more acceptance among those in the fields of medical science that involve coronaviruses and is not a conspiracy theory as some have alleged. The interesting question is if the Chinese Communist Party is willing to cooperate and accept the findings of another investigation that results in fault being laid at their feet.