After years of denials, a government scientist has been authorized to “suspect anything” about the virus’ origins.

The head of China's Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Professor George Fu Gao, has broken the taboo about the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic and killed millions of people across the globe. 

Speaking for a BBC News podcast, Gao, a world-leading virologist and immunologist who played a key role in the pandemic response and efforts to trace its origins, said in reference to the origins of the virus: "You can always suspect anything. That's science. Don't rule out anything." 

This sort of declaration from a scientist who won’t challenge the official policy of the Chinese Communist Party is a sign that the Beijing government has decided to soften its grip on information and authorize a scientist with reputation to carefully address the lab leak theory.

He also said the government had carried out an investigation at the Wuhan lab but has not seen its results, adding that he “heard” of reports about lack of technical incidents or man-caused wrongdoing.

George Gao is now the chairman of China's International Institute of Vaccine Innovation after retiring from the CDC last year.

China's government had been uncompromised until recently about any suggestion that the disease may have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

China is still suspected that has classified information about what happened at the Wuhan laboratory, which used to be funded by US governmental health agencies in certain projects, and conspiracists boldly accuse Beijing of the deliberate release of the deadly virus in collusion with the world’s most powerful figures.

There’s no consensus about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since the pandemic outbreak in November 2019. By the official declaration of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost 17 million people have died from complications caused by the virus.