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Lab leak or not? How politics shaped the battle over Covid’s origin

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Benjamin Mueller
New York Times·
11 mins to read
Lab leak or not? How politics shaped the battle over Covid’s origin
A view of the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a visit by the World Health Organisation team in February 2021. Photo / AP

A lab leak was once dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory. But the idea is gaining traction, even as evidence builds that the virus emerged from a market.

In the spring of 2021, with studies of the coronavirus pandemic’s origins going nowhere and the issue embroiled in bitter partisan

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