What is Covid-19? Covid, also known as Coronavirus, is a newly found virus that can affect an individual’s lungs and airways. During these past few months, many citizens had suspicions about the virus, thinking that the virus emerged from a laboratory as a scientific experiment. Still, it is now affirmed that the virus was spread onto humans by an animal source. Many animals can be affected by Covid. Some examples are Tigers, Minks, Cats, and Dogs.

The beginning of the virus is believed to come from the bat or a pangolin. Scientists think that the virus was transferred from one of these animal species to humans. The possibility of the virus originating from these species is very high because they both have had the same issue before with other pathogens. Brandon Ogbunu, a disease ecologist at Yale University, said, “We have a very good picture of how a virus of this kind could circulate and spill over into human beings.” For those individuals claiming that the virus is lab-made, there has been no evidence to support a synthetic source for the virus.

A Chinese Virologist named Dr. Li-Meng Yan went on twitter to give her opinion on the virus and say statements such as that the virus’s origin was false and that there are abnormalities in the virus that have had to be from other viruses. Although her statements might have convinced some, they did not convince other Virologists. Krishna Taylor, a Virologist at Carnegie Mellon University, said that the first statement was, “Full of contradictory statements and unsound interpretations.” and if that wasn’t enough, Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said that the second report from Dr.Li-Meng Yan, “Was even more unhinged than the first.” 

After Dr. Li-Meng Yan’s reports there were many other scientists coming together to debunk her statements, Dr. Ogbunu said, “Viruses frequently move between animal hosts, changing their genetic material along the way — sometimes even swapping hunks of their genomes with other viruses.” With this being said, Dr. Li-Meng Yan’s reports have been classified as simply theories of her. As said by Dr. Rasmussen, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”