Prominent NYC scientist backtracks on COVID origin over ‘disturbing information’

A prominent New York City microbiologist said Friday that “disturbing information” has led him to reverse course regarding his belief in the “natural origin” of COVID-19.

Peter Palese was among 27 scientists who signed an influential statement last year in the British scientific journal The Lancet that denounced as “conspiracy theories” the notion that the coronavirus could have escaped from a lab — or even be man-made. But Palese — chairman of the Microbiology Department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he runs a lab named after him — said he’s no longer convinced that’s the case.