WHO: Experts will most likely present report on COVID-19 origin next week

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that independent experts of the WHO who recently visited China to investigate the origin of coronavirus will present their report next week. During a press briefing, he said that the technical experts have notified WHO about the report presentation, which is expected for next week. The experts had earlier informed that they discovered that signs of the outbreak were much wider in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought.

Investigating the origins of Covid-19

Earlier, with increasing tensions between the United States and China, a WHO team planned on scrapping an interim report on its recent mission to Wuhan, where the first case of COVID-19 was reported. This was after an open letter by a group of two dozen scientists called for a new international inquiry into the origins of the deadly disease. They suggested that the recent study was compromised as they stated that the WHO team had "insufficient access to adequately investigate possible sources of the new virus, including whether it slipped from a laboratory".

However, recently, speaking at a press conference in Wuhan, Dr. Peter Daszak, president of NGO EcoHealth Alliance and one of the experts stressed that the team identified a ‘viable conduit’ between the wet market and the region where closest relatives of coronavirus were found. The thirteen-member team has earlier confirmed that the virus was not artificially created in a report that dismissed the western claim that the Chinese government deliberately spread the pandemic. The team which consists of leading virologists from ten countries has previously concluded that the lethal SARS-CoV-2 originated inside bats before jumping into human beings

Elaborating further, Dr. Daszak clarified that the theory that the virus crossed into domesticated or farmed animals and got into the Wuhan market was the scenario considered most likely by WHO scientists and their Chinese counterparts, as reported by Evening standard. Meanwhile, the scientists also confirmed that they did not find any evidence which said that the coronavirus was leaked from one of the three virology labs in Wuhan. The scientists clarified that they were given full access to the labs where they, after proper analysis, found no evidence of the pandemic being created by an accidental lab accident.