Chinese virologist claims Fauci's emails as proof backing her lab-leak theory

Washington: After US top coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci's emails covering the onset of the coronavirus outbreak was released last week, the debate over the origin of coronavirus from the Wuhan lab has sparked once again.

In its latest development, a Chinese virologist, who was among the first to suggest the COVID-19 virus leaked from a Wuhan lab now says that Fauci's emails prove that she was right all along.

According to a New York Post report, Dr Li-Meng Yan was one of the first to research the emerging coronavirus and previously revealed she was forced into hiding after accusing Beijing of a cover-up.

The scientist told Newsmax that Fauci's emails contain "a lot of useful information" suggesting he always knew more than he revealed.

In one of the email sent last April, an executive at a health charity thanked Fauci for publicly stating that scientific evidence does not support the lab-leak theory.

"They verify my work from the very beginning, even from last January, that these people know what happened, but they choose to hide for the Chinese Communist Party and for their own benefits," Yan insisted speaking of the treasure trove of documents released this week.

"He knows all these things," she insisted of Fauci and the apparent gain-of-function work carried out by the now-notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology in the heart of the city where the pandemic first emerged.

After the emails were made public, Andersen, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute, tweeted this week that "we seriously considered a lab leak a possibility," but reconsidered upon further review of the evidence.

"Significant new data, extensive analyses, and many discussions led to the conclusions in our paper," he said. "What the email shows, is a clear example of the scientific process."