It has taken 17 months since the new coronavirus supposedly erupted, but the lab leak hypothesis has finally come in from the cold. At first it was dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory promoted by ranting right-wingers and nasty Sinophobes; a stance inflamed by some of the wilder claims made about the deliberate release of bio-weapons and the determination of some scientists to assist the Chinese cover-up. But now an increasing number of credible scientific voices are calling for a full investigation into whether this global catastrophe was the result of some kind of human error at a Wuhan laboratory.
