Origin story of COVID virus rewritten, challenging lab leak theory

New research is rewriting the origin story of the virus that triggered the deadly COVID pandemic. Challenging the idea that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak, scientists now believe they know when and where the virus first emerged. COVID, which first emerged in humans in Wuhan in central China in December 2019, is calculated to have caused up to 36 million deaths worldwide. It's believe the virus that causes it left the area where it first emerged among animals in China or northern Laos several years before jumping across to humans 2700 kilometres away in Wuhan. While the…