A World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the source of COVID-19 is preparing to drop an interim report on its recent mission to China. This despite mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation. And an appeal by one foreign group of scientists for a new investigation to be conducted.
WHO to drop interim report of COVID-19 origin
On Thursday, a group of two dozen scientists sent an open letter asking for a new international investigation. They say that the WHO team that just returned from Wuhan, China, where the first identified cases were discovered, did not have enough access to properly examine potential origins of the latest COVID-19, such as if it escaped from a laboratory.
Their appeal comes as the United States, which recently reversed a decision to leave the WHO, calls for more clarity in the investigation, stating that it is awaiting the Wuhan mission report. It urged China to release all related details, including information on the first reported infections in December 2019 and possible earlier infections. Meanwhile, Beijing is pushing for WHO-led missions to other nations, including the United States, to investigate if the virus originated outside of China and spread to Wuhan through frozen food packaging, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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On February 12, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team would issue an interim report summarizing the Wuhan mission next week, with a final report to follow weeks later. However, since the summary report has yet to be released, the WHO team has decided to abandon the proposal, according to Peter Ben Embarek, the team's lead food-safety scientist. According to him, the WHO team intends to issue a review alongside the entire final report.
The delay in releasing the Wuhan mission's recommendations, undertaken in cooperation with Chinese scientists and officials who would have to accept any research, comes amid ongoing political and scientific debate about the pandemic's sources.
According to China's foreign ministry, the open letter was "old wine in new bottles" that inferred blame and lacked scientific credibility. The Wuhan mission concluded that a laboratory root was extremely unlikely and not worth further investigation. Requests for comment on the Wuhan mission study were not answered by the foreign ministry or China's national health commission.
WHO Report on COVID-19 origins lacked transparency
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal announced that a multinational association of scientists released an open letter urging a new and unbiased investigation into the virus's origins. "We cannot afford anything other than an entirely comprehensive and reliable investigation into the origins of the pandemic," the group said, adding that "efforts to date may not constitute a thorough, credible, and open investigation" due to the WHO's need to consult with member states and China's failure to allow the types of access needed for this type of work.
COVID-19 origins are still a mystery, and it has become a political and health problem. It is thought to have spread from animals to humans in the latter months of 2019 and was first discovered in China, where it is believed to have originated. China denies this origin myth and has been promoting the idea that it was brought into the country on frozen rice, boosted with the WHO team's help. Former President Donald Trump and his officials repeatedly promoted the theory that the virus had leaked from a lab in Wuhan, despite the lack of evidence, as per Forbes.
