WHO chief: ALL Covid-19 origin theories need investigation

Written by dailymail.co.uk on April 1, 2021. Posted in Current News

The World Health Organization chief today said all theories on the origins of Covid-19 remained open after reading the WHO-China study – despite the claim the report dismissed the notion that the virus escaped from a lab as ‘extremely unlikely’.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said all of the hypotheses are ‘on the table’ and require further investigation after reading the report from the international experts’ mission to Wuhan.

But this came hours after Associated Press reported that the report dismissed the lab leak theory and said the transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario.

Dr Tedros said he received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented on Tuesday.

‘We will read the report and discuss, digest its content and next steps with the member states,‘ he told a news conference in Geneva. ‘All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies from what I have seen so far.‘

The report’s release has been repeatedly delayed, raising questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew the conclusions to prevent blame for the pandemic falling on China.

Critics including ex-President Trump have accused the WHO of parroting Chinese propaganda on the virus since the outbreak was first announced to the world.

The comments by Dr Tedros come after New York Republican Representative Lee Zeldin slammed China for ‘covering up to the world the pandemic’s origins‘, while the WHO ‘has played along time and time again’.

Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, revealed he has ‘concerns’ over the WHO’s controversial fact-finding mission.

Repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.

‘We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,‘ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.

China rejected that criticism Monday and accused the US of ‘exerting political pressure’ on the fact-finding mission experts.

‘The US has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?‘ asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

It comes after Peter Daszak, a British-American expert on the WHO mission, accused President Biden of ‘trying to look tough on China‘ after a State Department spokesman questioned whether Beijing had been fully open with the WHO investigation.

The Biden administration raised concerns last month that Beijing helped to write the report after WHO scientists concluded that Covid did not leak from a Wuhan lab – as US officials have suggested.

Republican Lee Zeldin today tweeted: ‘Since the initial outbreak of Covid-19, the Chinese Communist Party has lied and covered-up to the world the pandemics origins. The World Health Organization has played along time and again as the Chinese Communist Party’s useful idiots. A thorough and truly independent investigation is long overdue.‘

A World Health Organization official said late last week that he expected the report would be ready for release ‘in the next few days.‘

Meanwhile, Dr Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the US, said there was ‘a lot of conjecture’ about the report and he said he needs to have a ‘close look at it‘.

He told CBS News’ Face the Nation: ‘I’d like to take a really close look at that. If, in fact, obviously there was a lot of restrictions on the ability of people who went there to really take a look then I’m going to have some considerable concern about that. But let me take a look at the report first.‘

The AP received what appeared to be a near-final version on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to its release.

The diplomat did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.

In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the coronavirus.

They concluded that transmission from an original host animal to an intermediary animal that comes into close contact with humans, before making the leap into people, was likely to very likely.

They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread through ‘cold-chain’ food products was possible but not likely.

The closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats, which are known to carry coronaviruses.

However, the report says that ‘the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.’

It said that highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, but also noted that mink and cats are susceptible to the COVID virus, which suggests they could be carriers.

The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, from mid-January to mid-February.

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO expert who led the Wuhan mission, said Friday that the report had been finalized and was being fact-checked and translated.

‘I expect that in the next few days, that whole process will be completed and we will be able to release it publicly,‘ he said.

Peter Embarek last month called on scientists to stop investigating the possibility the virus escaped from a lab, a position which WHO director Dr Tedros walked back on – saying ‘all options are on the table’.

Critics have accused the WHO of parroting Chinese propaganda on the virus since the outbreak was first announced to the world, and Dr Embarek’s comments only added fuel to the fire.

The draft report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of cases in December 2019.

The discovery of other cases before the Huanan market outbreak suggests it may have started elsewhere. But the report notes there could have been milder cases that went undetected and that could be a link between the market and earlier cases.

‘No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn,‘ the report says.

As the pandemic spread globally, China found samples of the virus on the packaging of frozen food coming into the country and, in some cases, have tracked localized outbreaks to them.

The report said that the cold chain, as it is known, can be a driver of long-distance virus spread but was skeptical it could have triggered the outbreak. The report says the risk is lower than through human-to-human respiratory infection, and most experts agree.

‘While there is some evidence for possible reintroduction of SARS-CoV-2 through handling of imported contaminated frozen products in China since the initial pandemic wave, this would be extraordinary in 2019 where the virus was not widely circulating,‘ the study said.

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