An expert group drafted by the World Health Organization to help investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic says further research is needed to determine how COVID-19 first began, including a more detailed analysis of the possibility it was a laboratory accident.
That stance marks a sharp reversal of the UN health agency's initial assessment of the pandemic's origins, when it concluded last year that it was “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 might have spilled into humans from a lab.
WHO's expert group said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sent two letters to senior Chinese government officials in February requesting information including details about the earliest human cases of COVID-19 in the city of Wuhan. The experts said no studies were provided to WHO that assessed the possibility of COVID-19 being a laboratory leak.
Yet after considerable criticism, including from some of the scientists on WHO's team, Tedros acknowledged that it was “ premature ” to rule out a lab leak and said he has asked China to be more transparent in sharing information. To investigate whether COVID-19 might have been the result of a lab accident, WHO's experts said research should be conducted “with the staff in the laboratories tasked with managing and implementing biosafety and biosecurity,” saying that would provide more information about how viruses related to COVID-19 were managed.
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