3. Uncertainty and Trump
US President Donald Trump says he’s confident Covid leaked from a Wuhan lab. But scientists seem certain it didn’t. What does the evidence show?
US President Donald Trump wades into the Covid origins debate.
It’s April 2020 and at the podium of the White House’s press room, Donald Trump makes a geopolitically incendiary claim: he has a high degree of confidence that the origin of the virus that causes Covid is the Wuhan Institute of Virology - a Chinese government lab. But scientists seem certain that can’t be true. So what is the evidence for both claims? And what were the scientists publicly dismissing a lab leak saying in private?
Archive: The White House; C-SPAN; CBS.
Presenter: John Sudworth
Series producer: Simon Maybin
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound design and mix: James Beard
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke
Science advice: Julian Siddle and Victoria Gill
Extra production: Eva Artesona and Kathy Long
Research support: Zisheng Xu and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Monitoring
Production coordinators: Siobhan Reed, Helena Warwick-Cross, Sophie Hill, and Debbie Richford
Theme and original music: Pete Cunningham, with trumpet by Joss Murray
Radio 4 Editor of Editorial Standards: Roger Mahony
Head of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News - Long Form Audio: Emma Rippon
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Fever: The Hunt for Covid's Origin
Cover-ups, coincidences, and conspiracy theories: where did Covid come from?
