A LEADING theory that the Covid pandemic originated from a lab leak in China cannot be ruled out, the World Health Organisation said.
A team of experts set up by the WHO in 2021 to investigate Covid’s origins said “all hypotheses remain on the table” – while also accusing Beijing of not giving up critical information.
APChina’s Wuhan lab has been at the centre of the lab leak theory since Covid emerged just miles from the facility[/caption]
AFPStaff members line up at attention as they prepare to spray disinfectant at Wuhan Railway Station[/caption]
EPADr Shi Zhengli – dubbed ‘Batwoman’ for her research on bat coronaviruses – at the Wuhan Institute of Virology[/caption]
The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) said on Friday that most data suggests the idea that the virus jumped from animals to humans.
This is the same conclusion the WHO came to in 2021.
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Their new report made the bombshell claim that a lab leak theory should “not be ruled out”.
But they added: “Nor can it be proven until more information is provided.”
Group chair Marietjie Venter said after three years of investigating, they were unable to come to a certain conclusion of the pandemic’s origins.
They blasted China for not releasing all necessary data to determine Covid’s creation – despite hundreds of requests for genetic sequences and biosecurity information to the government.
Venter said: “Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded.
“It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.”
Venter said the 27-member group could not reach a unanimous conclusion on Covid’s origins, following one member’s resignation earlier this week.
Three other scientists also asked for their names to be removed from the new report.
Covid-19 emerged just eight miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Scientists there had been importing and manipulating bat coronaviruses and had been filmed handling animals with inadequate protection.
Venter added that there was no evidence proving Covid was created in a lab, nor was there any indication it was spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China.
She said: “Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive.”
Beijing has consistently refused to release full details about the lab in Wuhan, despite repeated requests for information from multiple countries.
AFPA woman wearing a face mask holds a baby that wears a protective shield in Wuhan[/caption]
AFPThe P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan[/caption]
APCovid killed millions worldwide in the pandemic[/caption]
It comes after The Sun’s explosive Covid lab leak documentary laid bare the mounting evidence and disturbing questions surrounding the virus’s emergence in Wuhan – home to China’s most secretive bio-research facility.
In April, the US unveiled a bombshell new web page on the origins of Covid, blaming the Wuhan Institute of Virology for unleashing the killer virus.
And in a fresh propaganda push, Beijing insisted “substantial evidence” showed Covid “might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China”.
The document – titled Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China’s Actions and Stance – was released via China’s official Xinhua news agency.
It unashamedly accused the US of “indifference and delayed actions” during the global Covid fight – and of scapegoating China to deflect from its own “mismanaged” response.
It wrote: “The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged COVID-19 response.”
ReutersSecurity guards keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology[/caption]
The report added that America was “spreading misinformation” and wasted “precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic”.
It revived Beijing’s long-standing claims that it shared information with the world in a “timely manner”.
The paper added: “The US should not continue to ‘pretend to be deaf and dumb’, but should respond to the legitimate concerns of the international community.”
In May Donald Trump banned all US funding for risky virus research in China and beyond, five years after Covid-19 upended the planet.
The US President said in the Oval Office last month: “I said that right from day one it leaked out — whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people — but that’s how it leaked out in my opinion.”
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