The most talked about topic in the world right now is the pandemic, Covid-19. Covid-19, the global pandemic that has greatly affected the whole world, was first found on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan of Hubei province in mainland China. Located 1,153.4 km away from Beijing, Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province became the epicenter of the outbreak and was locked down for months. In late December 2019, WHO was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan City which was identified to be caused by a novel coronavirus on 7 January 2020. However, the emergence of this deadly virus is still an unsolved question for everyone in the world. Many theories have been put forward regarding the origin of coronavirus, the Wuhan lab leak theory and natural origin theory being two of the most popular hypotheses.
The Wuhan lab leak theory is one of the major hypotheses regarding the origin of coronavirus. This theory has been rejected by the Chinese government. But recently the controversial claim that the pandemic might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory is again gaining huge attention. According to this theory, the virus most probably got leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The institute is a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet seafood market where the first cluster of infections emerged in Wuhan. Many people suspect that the virus might have been leaked from the laboratory and entered the market where the spread started increasing rapidly. The main evidence to support a lab leak rests on the failure of scientists to pinpoint the intermediate animal that picked up the virus from bats and passed it to humans. In addition, the Wuhan institute is home to a laboratory that is headed by the virologist Shi Zhengli, who tracked down the bat origins of the last coronavirus Sars epidemic.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has been studying coronaviruses in bats for over a decade. The issue is still being hotly debated over. A World Health Organization (WHO) investigation was supposed to get to the bottom of it, but it produced more questions than answers. The fact that Sars-CoV-2 is highly transmissible among humans has also raised suspicions that it had been genetically enhanced. It is getting more and more popular due to the vast interest of netizens as well as scientists on the possibility of the theory. The controversial theory first emerged early on in the pandemic and was promoted by then-US President Donald Trump. Some even suggested it could have been engineered as a possible biological weapon. This theory further enlarged when it was reportedly said that some doctors of the institute were hospitalized in mid-November. The WHO team who had gone to Wuhan for a check had previously stated this theory was highly unlikely.
 
While some also believe it might have been a wild organism being sold at the market that might have been consumed which might have been the origin of the pandemic which gave rise to the natural theory. This hypothesis was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time passed, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic make-up of Covid-19, casting doubt over the theory.

US President Joe Biden had announced an urgent investigation that would look into the origin of the disease. His team was given 90 days in May to review the virus’s origins after several US scientists indicated they were no longer certain about the source of Sars-CoV-2. A new report on the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is said to be presented to the US president, Joe Biden this week which will further help to find out the source of the virus.

The city Wuhan, which houses 11 million people recently launched comprehensive nucleic acid testing of all residents after a sudden outbreak of covid cases in the country again. It is an interesting topic that whether the virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal or a laboratory accident. Also, China has recently been hinting that other nations might be the origin of coronavirus, though the first cases of the pandemic were found out in Chinese, which has opened the gateway to many theories. 
 The origin of the coronavirus is crucial as it might give a clue to the cure of the pandemic to save the lives of many people across the world. If we want to prevent another pandemic in the future, it would be advantageous to know how this one started.