Questions about the origin of COVID-19 continue to rise and more call for detailed investigations.
What Happened?
On Sunday, an article by The Wall Street Journal said, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report, three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care. That lab is a centre for the study of coronaviruses as well as other pathogens and the report says that several researchers at the lab showed “…symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.”
If this report were to be proved as true, it could mean that COVID-19 actually originated in a lab in Wuhan and there were confirmed cases in the country in November 2019. It would disprove Beijing’s statement, which said that the country’s first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on December 8, 2019.
Needless to say, this is a huge accusation against one of the largest economies in the world. So, how has China reacted to the report? China’s foreign ministry said, as quoted by WSJ, “The U.S, continues to hype the lab leak theory” and added, “Is it actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?”
China & COVID-19
So, China is continuing to decline all the claims that say that the virus could have leaked from a lab. Meanwhile, WHO has also confirmed the same. Earlier in March, a joint report by the WHO-led team that visited Wuhan with Chinese experts said that the virus most likely spread from bats to humans via another animal. The report also said that a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely”.
If a group of scientists and experts say that the possibility of COVID-19 being leaked from a lab is very low, then why are people still hanging on to that theory? It is because of the lack of transparency from Beijing. The WHO-led team said that they didn’t view raw data or original lab, safety and other records. On top of this, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the team hadn’t sufficiently examined the lab leak hypothesis, and called for a fuller investigation of the idea.
Not only the WHO Chief, the U.S., European Union and several other governments have also asked for a more transparent probe of the origins of COVID-19. They have asked in particular for better access to data and samples from potential early COVID-19 cases.
Zooming Out
This report comes on the eve of a meeting of WHO’s decision-making body, which is anticipated to discuss the next phase of an investigation into COVID-19’s origins. So, now all eyes are on the second phase of investigation.
Because the first phase of investigation said that the virus came from bats to human via other animal. So, now everyone is eagerly waiting to see how WHO will plan the next phase amid this report, which contradicts with WHO’s statement about laboratory leak of COVID-19 being “extremely unlikely”. Finding out the exact origin of COVID-19 will help everyone, but it will not be possible without a complete co-operation from China and an unbiased examination by WHO.
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