WHO criticizes China, says it limited study on virus’s origins
The head of the World Health Organization, the U.S. government and 13 other countries on Tuesday voiced frustration with the level of access China granted an international mission to Wuhan — a striking and unusually public rebuke.
The comments came as the team tasked with probing the origins of the coronavirus pandemic issued a report on its roughly monthlong visit to the central Chinese city.
The report, obtained by the Washington Post on Monday, offers the most detailed look yet at what happened in the early days of the outbreak, but it leaves key questions unanswered and has been overshadowed by concern about Chinese influence.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to member states on Tuesday that he expected “future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing” — the most pointed comments to date from an agency that has been solicitous to China through most of the pandemic.
He said there is a particular need for a “full analysis” of the role of animal markets in Wuhan and that the report did not conduct an “extensive enough” assessment of the possibility the virus was introduced to humans through a laboratory incident.
The report, officially released Tuesday, concludes that the role of markets is unclear and that the idea it could have leaked from a Wuhan lab does not warrant further investigation.
The United States, Britain, Korea, Israel, Japan and others issued a joint statement Tuesday expressing concern. “Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence,” it reads.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the mission was denied access to crucial data and therefore presented “a partial and incomplete picture.”
Chinese officials did not respond directly to the criticism Tuesday, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the report more generally, saying, “China has always been a supporter for global scientific research on the source of the virus and its transmission routes.”
It added: “Study of origins is also a global mission that should be conducted in multiple countries and localities.”
Among the key findings of the report is that the market linked to early cases was not necessarily the source of the virus, but it might have been the site of an early outbreak as a virus that was circulating in December 2019 spread among stalls selling a variety of seafood and meat. The report notes that the earliest reported case, from Dec. 8, did not have any link to the Huanan market.
The report also recommends further study of the possible path of transmission between species and through frozen food — a fringe theory favored by Beijing.