New Delhi: A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of Covid-19 is planning to scrap an interim report on its recent mission to China amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and an appeal from one international group of scientists for a new probe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the genesis of the coronavirus pandemic has said that there was not enough evidence to suggest that the COVID-19 virus had originated in China.
“There have been no signs of Sars-Cov-2 dispersal in the population before December 2019. There is not enough evidence to conclusively prove that the COVID-19 virus had spread in the city earlier,” the WHO’s China team chief Liang Wanyan told the media.
The WHO team said the investigation found new facts, but it did not make a dramatic change to the coronavirus pandemic’s picture. WHO expert Peter Ben Embarek also said that an investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 virus indicated that coronaviruses were found naturally in bats, but it was less likely that they were in Wuhan.
He also said that the Covid-19 virus’s path from the real animal to the Hunan Market in Wuhan could be extremely winding and it may have crossed the boundaries.
Peter Ben Embarek said that the team had not found any evidence to suggest that the coronavirus infection spread to Wuhan or any other place before December 2019. He said that there has been evidence that it had spread to Hunan Bazaar in Wuhan in December 2019. He said that the probability of the theory of the Covid-19 virus leaking from the lab in Wuhan is extremely low.