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A recent Danish documentary has revealed that a World Health Organization (WHO) international mission that looked into the origins of COVID-19 bowed to Chinese pressure to minimize the likelihood of the virus escaping from a local lab.
Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, an expert leading the mission,said in a documentary interview that Chinese counterparts initially refused to include any lab leak hypothesis in the report, according to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. They eventually allowed the hypothesis to be mentioned, but only on the condition that the theory be labeled as very unlikely.
According to Businesswire, the new admission contrasts sharply with WHO’s previous statements regarding the matter. The organization has previously said it was able to accurately assess the likely origins of the virus, and stood by those findings at a critical time when policies were being formed.
Commentating about the change, Dr. Jorge Saavedra, Executive Director of the AHF Global Public Health Institute at the University of Miami, said it
“It certainly appears China had a stake in molding the report to its purposes by de-emphasizing the possibility of a lab accident. What those purposes are is unknown, but the more China resists calls for transparency on the origins of COVID-19, the more people everywhere will wonder if something went wrong, perhaps there was an accident, or a human error of some kind. Whatever may have caused or contributed to the emergence of COVID-19 – the world must know the truth, so that we can prevent another public health disaster like this.”
Groups including the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) called out conflicts of interest among certain team members, as well China’s heavy-handed supervision of the Wuhan mission, while it was still in progress in February.
The Danish documentary “The Virus Mystery,” which includes an interview with Dr. Embarek as well as video recorded on his phone while in Wuhan, aired last week on Danish television.
In light of the new information, AHF is urging the international community to demand greater transparency from China, including full access to raw clinical data, and independent interviews with whistleblowers and early COVID-19 patients, together with assurances that witnesses won’t face retaliation for speaking out.