The Chairman of the State Duma of Russia, Vyacheslav Volodin, spread the information that the USA is allegedly involved in creating COVID-19; therefore, it must compensate for the damages to the countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic. In this statement, he again spread a fake about "US biolaboratories."

In fact, the WHO commission, which investigated the circumstances of the beginning of the epidemic in China and studied the possible origin of the new virus, reported that COVID-19 has a natural birth - the natural source is bats. The WHO did not detect any cases of coronavirus disease before December, so the first place of the spread of the virus was Wuhan (China). Moreover, experts consider it "extremely unlikely" that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is no evidence that this virus, or a similar one, was studied in Wuhan laboratories. In addition, as VoxUkraine previously reported, various studies had confirmed that the MERS-Cov virus most likely originated in bats and was transmitted to camels before it acquired the ability to transmit to humans - the same with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. "Most scientists and the WHO are inclined to think that the virus arose due to a natural mutation and passed to humans from animals. It is confirmed by more recent studies of samples of the new coronavirus," the fact-checkers said. Fakes about the so-called "American biolaboratories," particularly in Ukraine, were repeatedly refuted by "Media Detector" - read more here.