WHO keeping all speculations on board regarding COVID-19 origin

The head of the World Health Organization said all speculations about the origin of COVID-19 remained on the table following an investigation mission in China. The WHO's mission to Wuhan, where the first coronavirus infections were identified in December 2019, could not identify the source of the virus, but threw cold water on the theory that it had leaked from the city's virology laboratory.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva on Friday with Missionary Chief Peter Ben Embarek that the team had conducted a "very important scientific exercise in very difficult circumstances".

'Some questions have been raised about whether some hypotheses have been discarded. After speaking with a few members of the team, I want to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and studies.

'Some of this work may fall outside the scope and scope of this mission. We have always said that this answer would not find all the answers, but it added important information that brings us closer to the origin of the virus.

Tedros said a summary report of the mission's findings could appear as early as next week, followed by a final report "in the coming weeks". Both would be made public.

The organization said that the main hypothesis is that the virus originated in a bat, although there are several possible scenarios for how it is transmitted to humans, possibly first by infecting another animal species.

At a press conference in Wuhan on Tuesday, Ben Embarek destroyed the theory that a leak from a virology laboratory in Wuhan could have caused the pandemic.

"The hypothesis of the laboratory incident is highly unlikely," he said. It is not "in the hypotheses we will propose for future studies".

The previous US government of President Donald Trump, who left office last month, said he believed the virus may have escaped from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

China has vehemently denied this, saying the Wuhan Institute of Virology has not studied related viruses.