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LONDON - Two champions of "rigorous science" failed to provide a shred of evidence that COVID-19 was engineered and leaked from a lab, The Guardian has recently reported.

Matt Ridley, a Conservative hereditary peer best known for his sceptical writings on climate change, and Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ventured into the deepest recesses of cyberspace in their "Search for the Origin of COVID-19", aided by an eclectic band of internet sleuths who go by such names as the "Seeker", said the report.

However, nowhere do they present proof that the novel coronavirus was manufactured, it noted, stressing that Chan's claim that the virus appeared pre-adapted to human transmission "to an extent similar to late epidemic Sars" is highly misleading.

"The tragedy is that in their desire to make a plausible case for a lab accident, Chan and Ridley neglect the far more urgent and compelling story of how the trade in wild animals, coupled with global heating and the destruction of natural habitats, makes the emergence of pandemic viruses increasingly likely," it said.