It has been more than five years since the world was first hit by the COVID-19 virus, which seems to be resurfacing again with new variants, especially in Asian countries, including Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand. India too has reported over 1,000 active cases, while the new variant has also reached the US, killing over 300 people, as per the reports.As the world yet again is gearing up against the COVID-19 virus, let us look back at how it all started in the first place. This brings us to the 'lab leak' theory propagated by the current US President, Donald Trump. This theory also sparked a fierce debate, and made many question 'Was it really the result of a catastrophic lab accident in Wuhan?' or 'Was it a natural spill over from animals sold in wet markets?'What Is The Lab Leak Theory?This controversial theory was championed by Trump in his first term, when he speculated that the virus may have been engineered as a biological weapon.However, in 2023 by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who told the Fox News that it was his bureau's assessment that "the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident."This theory was yet again brought back in light in 2025, when fresh assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) noted that the COVID-19 pandemic was in fact "more likely" leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan than transmitted by animals.As per a spokesperson, a "research-related origin" of the virus "is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting," as reported by the BBC. In an interview with Breitbart News, CIA Director John Ratcliffe emphasized that it was his intention to shift the agency's stance on the virus origins.“One of the things that I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of Covid,” he said. “That’s a day-one thing for me.”A New Study Says Something ElseHowever, a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell provides the strongest genetic evidence against the 'lab leak' theory of the COVID-19 origin.This study analyzed 167 genomes of bat coronaviruses and involved experts from the University of Edinburgh and 20 other institutions from the US, Europe and Asia.The team discovered that the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—were circulating in bat populations in northern Laos and China’s Yunnan province. Their findings suggest that the virus’s most recent common ancestor likely emerged five to seven years before the first COVID-19 cases were identified in late 2019.“The data clearly indicate that the progenitor of Sars-CoV-2 was circulating in bats thousands of kilometres away from Wuhan,” lead author Jonathan Pekar said in an interview with science news outlet EurekAlert. “This puts the virus’s evolutionary origins well outside the geographic scope of Wuhan’s research facilities.”This account claims that COVID-19 contains biological features rarely seen in naturally occurring viruses and that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) showed COVID-like symptoms in late 2019—before the outbreak was traced to the now-infamous wet market.It also argues that if the virus had emerged naturally, clear scientific evidence would likely have been found by now.A Different NarrativeHowever, the Edinburgh report points the direction of the COVID-19 origin to a whole different level. It looks at the human-driven activity of illegal wildlife trade, which the report suggests to likely be the factor of spread of the virus.Researchers believe the virus’s most recent ancestor likely emerged around 2017. Its closest genetic relatives have been found in bat species from northern Laos—over 2,700 kilometers from Wuhan, well beyond bats' usual migration range.This has led scientists to suspect that the virus reached humans through the movement of infected animals via illegal wildlife trade networks.