KEY POINTS

  • U.S. officials believe that COVID-19 allegedly came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China
  • The theory points to someone from the lab infected “through an accident or poor handling of materials"
  • Another angle suggests the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Wuhan CDC to Huanan market

Just like in the popular video game “Resident Evil,” U.S. Intelligence and security officials are mulling on the fact that COVID-19 allegedly came from a laboratory in China.

But instead of creating zombies and flesh-eating monsters, the novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands around the world, causing panic and with the government stepping in to flatten the curve of the virus to infect more people.

In order to pinpoint the origin of COVID-19, experts are now picking their brains to determine where this all started. CNN pointed that the gathering of minds – each with their own theories – is a typical scenario when “high-profile incidents” become volatile and out of hand.

Coronavirus COVID-19 Laboratory Test, Cure, Vaccine
Andressa Parreiras, Biomedic, and Larissa Vuitika, biologist, work in a laboratory during the extraction of the virus genetic material on March 24, 2020 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The Ministry of Health convened The Technological Vaccine Center of the Federal University of Minas Gerais laboratory to conduct research on the coronavirus (COVID-19) in order to diagnose, test and develop a vaccine. According to the Ministry of Health, as of Tuesday, March 24, Brazil has 1.891 confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and at least 34 recorded deceases. Pedro Vilela/Getty Images

An “intelligence source” also told the network that the United States has allegedly disregarded a prime motive that COVID-19 is “associated with bioweapons research,” but from a laboratory in Wuhan, China where it was later released to the public.

However, U.S. Intelligence officials are not closing the door on this theory. Rather, they are trying to unearth whether someone from the lab was allegedly infected “through an accident or poor handling of materials,” exited the facility and infected others in the process.

Along this line, Business Insider backed this “unsubstantiated” lab-originated theory.” It said in an article that the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control first reported an “unknown, pneumonia-like” illness to the World Health Organization on December 31. The report claimed that among the first cases were among “handlers and frequent visitors” of Huanan market, a trading spot in Wuhan's Jianghan District that sells live animals and seafood.

One week after the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) discovered a new coronavirus and was later known as COVID-19. Based on the theory, the origin of the virus may have something to do with the location of the two laboratories to Huanan market: a Wuhan CDC office is located around 600 meters from the market, but the WIV is more than 14 kilometers away.

The theory doesn't stop here. According to Botao Xiao, a South China University of Technology resident who published a study on the “possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,” the WIV has a number of animals that they allegedly use as test subjects. These include bats, another theory source and the original hosts of another coronavirus strain, SARS.

With most scientists believing that bats are the original carriers of COVID-19, experts also suggested that it was passed to humans through an intermediary animal that had found its way to a wet market in Wuhan.

The world's greatest minds will continue to come up with theories – conspiracies or not – to finally crack down Ground Zero of COVID-19.