Published 07:25 IST, February 13th 2021
'All hypotheses still open': COVID-19 pandemic origin investigation still on, says WHO
“Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded,” the WHO Director-General said at a briefing Friday about COVID-19 probe.
“All hypotheses” into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is “still on the table”, and the pathogen that caused the global health crisis still needs investigation and thorough research, head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his remarks, following a probe in Wuhan, China. “Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded,” the WHO Director-General said at a briefing Friday, adding that he spoke with the team, and wishes to confirm that, “all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study.” Tedros’ remarks came after a WHO-led investigation team, on February 2, visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology to probe into the origins of the coronavirus. The team reportedly met the ‘key staff’ there and asked “important questions” regarding the COVID-19 pandemic’s initial outbreak.
WHO commenced its mission to trace the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 disease following the allegations by the United States that the deadly pathogen spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Shortly, thereafter, a team of international experts visited the WIV, located in the capital of Hubei, where the investigators unveiled “new information” as they pressed the Wuhan lab officials on “critical issues” surrounding the spread of the disease. Earlier, this week, the WHO investigative team had concluded that it was “very unlikely” that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which, the United States once again indirectly questioned, saying that it will “verify the results using its own intelligence.”
“We have said that this mission would not find all the answers, but it has added important information that takes us closer to understanding the origins of the virus,” the WHO chief clarified Friday, in a live-streamed address.
Lab leak 'unlikely'
Rejecting the unsubstantiated claims about the virus escaping the Chinese lab, WHO team leader Peter Ben Embarek said: ‘It is very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place.’ Former US President Donald Trump, however, had climbed during his final days in office that the intelligence operatives assembled information about the Wuhan laboratory and had found that the initial outbreak of the pathogen happened in Wuhan lab, in China. Furthermore, at a White House presser, he told reporters that China had attempted a coverup by “talking about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn't in that area if you can believe this.” Berating China, he added, “all 184 countries now are suffering because of the Chinese virus."
Updated 07:25 IST, February 13th 2021