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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press.
The findings offer little new insight into how the virus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered, though that was as expected. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions. The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis.
The report, which is expected to be made public Tuesday, is being closely watched since discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics — but it’s also extremely sensitive since China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one. Repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.
“We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.
China rejected that criticism Monday.
“The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.
The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, from mid-January to mid-February.
In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread through “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.
Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats. However, the report says that “the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.”
It said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, which are another kind of mammal, but also noted that mink and cats are susceptible to the COVID-19 virus, suggesting they could be carriers, too.
The AP received the draft copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented Tuesday.
“We will read the report and discuss, digest its content and next steps with member states,” Tedros told a news conference in Geneva. “But as I have said, all hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies from what I have seen so far.”
He declined to comment on whether political pressure had influenced the report.
The draft report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of cases in December 2019.
The discovery of other cases before the Huanan market outbreak suggests it may have started elsewhere. But the report notes there could have been milder cases that went undetected and that could be a link between the market and earlier cases.
“No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn,” the report said.
The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a range of animals—and some wondered if they had brought the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that a range of animal products—including everything from bamboo rats to deer, often frozen—were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.
As the pandemic spread globally, China found samples of the virus on the packaging of frozen food coming into the country and, in some cases, have tracked localized outbreaks to them.
The report said that the cold chain, as it is known, can be a driver of long-distance virus spread but was skeptical it could have triggered the outbreak. The report says the risk is lower than through human-to-human respiratory infection, and most experts agree.
“While there is some evidence for possible reintroduction of SARS-CoV-2 through handling of imported contaminated frozen products in China since the initial pandemic wave, this would be extraordinary in 2019 where the virus was not widely circulating,” the study said.
The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing the possibility the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, a speculative theory that was suggested and promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump among others.
It said such laboratory accidents are rare and the labs in Wuhan working on coronaviruses and vaccines are well-managed. It also noted that there is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019 and that the risk of accidentally growing the virus was extremely low.
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Sorry, no one with common sense believes the WHO and China’s report.
Agreed. Too many things that defy logic had to have happened. More unbelievable given these viruses were being made in a lab nearby.
Modified nearby.
Look, the lab leak theory doesn’t mean there was initial malice on the part of the Chinese. The US has had its own lab leaks and will have more. Just hope we get lucky and it’s US scientists who cause the next pandemic.
The US made plenty of its own mistakes in responding, including the stupid trade war which means we lost access to monitor what was going on in their labs.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin-chaos-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322
I don’t disagree with you Joe and I know these labs are cooperative efforts snd some US scientists were involved. It could happen to us next time. The problem I have is that possibly lying to keep the Chinese or the scientific community in general from culpability only ignores the fact that whatever their doing in theses labs may be far to dangerous and needs to stop. We’ll never get there with coverups and I’m still very concerned that if these things are ever weaponized we can see the results and how it can topple a society.
For once, Joe B, you and I agree: what cannot be immediately sourced to malice can most likely be traced to good old fashioned incompetence. Given that the public health standards in Chinese wet markets hasn’t evolved since the Ming Dynasty (14th century), it shouldn’t come as any surprise that their medical lab standards aren’t up to snuff either.
But I also know better than to trust any and all American news media sources–the real engine of our ideological corruption–since there’s plenty of reason to believe all of them (even small outfits like Politico) are getting bribed by the CCP to report favorably on them, and plenty are accepting those bribes since mass media in the US is in an economic freefall of their own creation…since 50% of Americans know they’re all complete garbage. And these failing news outlets, desperate for money, have no problem selling out their own country and its people to stay afloat.
Do let me know the next time lapsed American lab standards cause a global pandemic. It’s happened so often, we just lose track of it, right?
The trade war is fully justified. China is the great threat to the Western world order, and the Western order is superior to that of the east–just ask Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. China wants to run us to the ground. I know your silly news sources like to tell us Russia is the problem–that aging Slavic country where one out of six adults is an alcoholic, with all of its assets tied in the energy sector, and a declining birth rate for the last half century. But they are lying. The country that is the grave threat is the one paying off the elites of the West to cover up their misdeeds (Uyghur concentration camps, child slave labor, suicide for COVID whistleblowers), and that country is a bit to the south of the Great Russian Bear. They are not our friends. If you had ever been able to contain your TDS enough to attend a trump rally you would have seen how many Chinese American immigrants there are who supported trump because he was so tough on China. They’re the immigrants who know how awful and oppressive their native country really is. Jao Bai Dun comes to China with open palms.
Trump said a trade war would be easy to win. He failed miserably at that. He was out of his league.
America doesn’t have the will to fight a trade war. It would take spending trillions, which wasn’t the part of Trump’s plan, and it would take government involvement in American markets to a level that the Republican Party will not stomach.
Remind me – when did Trump propose spending bigly, over decades, to reduce our dependence on China and Taiwan for computer chips? With tax increases to pay for it all?
When did he LEAD with subsidies for farmers, so they don’t get harmed by China refusing to buy our crops?
Go down the list. There’s a host of areas in which you would need government involvement in the market to make up for the lack of China.
And if you think that can be pulled off by a bunch of anti-establishment clowns like Hawley and Cruz … yeah, good luck to ya. They’re barely able to handle getting their shoes tied despite their elite educations.
Oh, and for the lab leaks … what I said earlier was not phrased correctly. We’ve messed up plenty over the years … I think it’s a case of but for grace it hasn’t been an American lab.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nearly-400-accidents-with-dangerous-pathogens-and-bio-toxins-reported-in-u-s-labs-over-seven-years/
So you admit, Joe, that you actually are an ardent defender of the establishment–just like all neo-lib globalists? Kudos!
I appreciate you citing a 2011 article from Scientific American to try to cover for your dear beloved China by pointing out American mishaps. Why DO you come to their defense so much, Joe? Is the CCP paying you out as well–or simply your Fortune 500 employer?!
If you’d actually read what I say, you’d see I agree with a fair chunk of what you’re wanting. But, no. It’s your way or the high way. You can’t accept someone who agrees with a fair chunk of what you’re saying because they don’t agree with EVERYTHING you say to a sufficient level, so you have to attack them. Good luck with getting people to come around to your way of thinking with that approach.
Most people realize this attitude towards life is nonsense by the time they get out of college and the Ayn Rand or Lenin or whatever “phase” passes. Or, they go see a therapist and figure out why people don’t seem to like them all that much.
But, hey, you do you.
What is wrong with you skeptics?? Don’t you trust the Chines Communist Party and their WHO puppets?
National Enquirer has become the new trusted news source thanks to the Associated Press’ in depth reporting!
Good one, J C B….and “right on,” Mark H.
There’s been no investigation of the lab. That’s all we need to know.