WHO report on corona origin: China did not provide enough data

Status: 03/30/2021 5:46 p.m.

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WHO chief Tedros has sharply criticized China: Beijing did not provide enough data for the report on the origin of the corona virus. He called for further investigations – also on the controversial laboratory hypothesis.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has accused China of not providing the expert mission with enough data on the origins of the corona pandemic. In the future, he expects “joint studies in order to share more timely and comprehensive data,” said Tedros at a briefing for WHO member states on the occasion of the official presentation of the report on the mission.

“An important beginning, but not the end”

Tedros also called for the thesis that the novel corona virus could have escaped from a laboratory to be further investigated. “Further missions with specialized experts, which I am ready to dispatch” are conceivable. He stressed that the report was “an important beginning, but not the end. We have not yet found the origin of the virus.” The USA also repeatedly expressed doubts about China’s transparency in dealing with the pandemic and therefore the informative value of the report. There are a number of unanswered questions, emphasized, for example, the high-ranking corona advisor to the White House, Andy Slavitt.

The 17 international experts who searched for the origins of the corona pandemic in Wuhan, China in January, came to the conclusion that the virus could have its origin in pangolins as well as in bats. In the report, they do not rule out the possibility that the virus was already circulating in other countries before it was discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, China. However, the quality of previous studies on the topic left something to be desired, it had to be investigated further, it said.

Beijing walled up for months

However, they described the theory that it could have escaped from a laboratory as “extremely unlikely”. The possibility of an intentional release of SARS-CoV-2 has not been investigated.

Beijing blocked the research mission for months. Only after more than a year did the communist leadership agree to the WHO mission. Critics also suspect that China had a major influence on the final version of the report.

Almost three million dead

At the end of 2019, the first cases of infection became known in Wuhan, China. Since then, according to the authorities, more than 127 million people worldwide have been infected with Sars-CoV-2; almost three million infected people died. Due to new, more dangerous virus mutants, stricter restrictions have recently been imposed again in numerous countries.