Interview: U.S. COVID-19 “lab-leak” conspiracy reveals America’s desperation in int’l arena, says scholar

A man wearing a face mask is seen on a street in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Dec. 16, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The U.S. “irrational obsession” with conspiracy theories about COVID origin exposed the country’s desperation in the fields of economy and foreign policy, according to Turkish academic Baris Doster.

ISTANBUL, June 25 (Xinhua) — The United States sticking to its so-called “lab-leak” conspiracy about the origins of COVID-19 reveals that it has largely lost its international competitiveness and is in great despair, a Turkish academic has said.

“The fact that the U.S. still insists on its accusations at a time when the epidemic has largely lost its impact reveals its lack of logic, (and that it) has ulterior motives, and is desperate in the fields of economy and foreign policy,” Baris Doster, an academic at Istanbul’s Marmara University, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The scholar noted that the world’s most respected scientists and distinguished scientific institutions, research centers and laboratories had produced hundreds of articles on the origins of COVID-19, all disproving the U.S. conspiracy.

For example, a scientific report by an expert panel published in Science magazine in October 2022 showed that COVID-19 is likely to have spread naturally in a zoonotic jump from animals to humans, without the involvement of a laboratory.

Behind the U.S. “irrational obsession” with the matter lies its inability to stop the rise and growth of Asia and Eurasia in general in the fields of international politics and global economy, said Doster.■