UK government downplayed ‘baffling’ Covid lab leak amid backlash from scientific advisers, sources claim

The British government played down the ‘high likelihood’ that Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory leak in China due to resistance from scientific advisers, it was claimed yesterday.

US officials shared their views on the origins of the virus during a phone call with other members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

But the ‘lab leak’ theory was downplayed in Britain due to resistance from government scientists who favored the idea that Covid was ‘crossing the species barrier’ from animals to humans, US sources said.

The January 2021 phone call included Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s foreign secretary, and then British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and their colleagues.

The call – previously reported by The Mail on Sunday – was ‘open’, i.e. unencrypted, in the hope that the Chinese government would intercept the call, it is claimed.

The January 2021 phone call included Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s Foreign Secretary, and then British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (photo) and their colleagues.

The allegations, made by unnamed officials speaking to The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, are likely to increase calls for the Covid inquiry to be opened into where the virus originated.

A US intelligence source said: ‘We saw several pieces of information and thought they were mind-boggling.

“They clearly pointed out that there was a good chance that it was indeed a laboratory leak.”

An intelligence dossier showed that the Chinese military collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the years leading up to the pandemic, and that some laboratory researchers fell ill shortly before the virus was first recorded in the area.

Other revelations revealed that Chinese scientists have been conducting “gain of function” research, in which a virus is genetically engineered to exhibit different behavior, such as becoming more contagious or infectious against different species.

The UK government, including Boris Johnson, initially rejected the claim that Covid was created by scientists, saying in June 2021: ‘The advice we have received is that it does not appear that this disease is of zoonotic origin from a laboratory. .’

Two former officials said the evidence was not taken seriously because ministers saw claims about lab leaks as a “radioactive American political issue” discredited by public disagreements between government scientists and Mr Trump.

One official said: ‘Once the issue became fundamentally political, the ability to take it on internationally essentially collapsed because no one else was interested in doing anything about it.

“I think Five Eyes was somewhat irritated by the way this issue was being handled in American politics.”

The two sources cited by The Sunday Telegraph both separately named Sir Jeremy Farrar, then a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, as a leading opponent of the laboratory leak theory within the British government.

The British government, including Boris Johnson (pictured in 2022), initially rejected the claim that Covid was created by scientists

Sir Jeremy and 26 other scientists rejected the lab leak theory in February 2020, signing a statement saying: ‘We stand together to condemn conspiracy theories that suggest Covid-19 has no natural origin.’

While many scientific experts say an animal-human interaction is the most likely cause of the initial infection, some figures, most notably Michael Gove, say the virus is “man-made.”

Mr Gove told the Covid Inquiry in November that there was ‘a significant view that believes the virus itself is man-made – and that brings its own challenges’.

Both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Energy have said they believe a laboratory leak is the most likely cause of the illness. British ministers are facing calls to expand the Covid investigation to include an inquiry into its origins.

A UK Government spokesperson said: ‘There are questions that need to be answered about the origins of Covid-19, not least to ensure we are better prepared for future pandemics.

‘The United Kingdom supports the World Health Organization in its investigation into the origins. It is important that China and other countries fully cooperate.”