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BEIJING: Inspectors from the World Health Organization (WHO) had “very frank” discussions with Chinese scientists about the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, including theories it leaked from a laboratory, the head of the the probe in Wuhan on Thursday (February 4). ).
The conversations covered famous claims widely reported in global media, Peter Ben Embarek said in an interview a day after he and his WHO team visited the lab.
While he did not identify specific theories, Ben Embarek described some of them as irrational, insisting that researchers would not waste time chasing the wildest claims.
“The discussions were very frank,” the United Nations health agency food safety scientist said by phone from Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019.
“We discussed … a lot of the famous theories and so forth, and what has been done to explain them,” added Ben Embarak, who was in the WHO Beijing office for two years starting in 2009.
READ: Coronavirus ‘was not man-made or genetically modified’ – US spy agency.
Since emerging from a 14-day hotel quarantine last week, WHO experts have visited several high-profile sites linked to the origins of the pandemic, including a seafood market where people were found to be ill for the first time.
Wednesday’s trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology was one of the highest-profile events on the agenda due to the controversial theory that it was the origin of the pandemic.
Laboratory scientists conduct research on some of the world’s most dangerous diseases, including strains of bat coronavirus similar to COVID-19.
READ: China’s bat caves need to be explored for COVID-19 origins, says WHO team member
Early in the pandemic, speculation emerged that the virus could have accidentally leaked from the laboratory in Wuhan, although there was no evidence to support that theory.
Then-US President Donald Trump and his supporters took advantage of those rumors and amplified them with conspiracy theories that China deliberately leaked the virus.
NOT “PURSUING GHOSTS”
Ben Embarek said the discussions in the lab were helpful in understanding the staff’s position “on many of these statements and statements that everyone has seen and read in the news.”
He seemed to dismiss some of the theories, calling much of the speculation “excellent settings for good movies and series for the next few years.”
He also stressed that the WHO researchers would “follow the science and we the facts” to reach their conclusions.
READ: WHO criticizes critics of research on COVID-19 origins
“If we start to go on and chase ghosts here and there, we will never move anywhere,” he told AFP.
“That’s also an important step where we were also able to understand where these stories came from.
“And we can rationally … explain why some of them are totally irrational, why some of them might make sense, and why some of them can be explained or not explained,” he said.
The team visited the institute’s P4 laboratory, Asia’s first maximum security laboratory equipped to handle class 4 pathogens such as Ebola.
Ben Embarek said the trip to Wuhan, which is due to conclude within the next week, will not lead to a final conclusion on how the virus passed from animals to humans.
“We are not going to get to the last full understanding of the origins of this virus, but it will be a good first step,” he said.
“It will be the best, very solid and clear way that we will have of how to move forward.”
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