The WHO is denying a report made by a top scientific journal that it had “quietly shelved” an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. But that denial itself only highlighted the challenges to such an investigation.
. The scientific consensus, however, generally backs the idea that COVID-19 emerged via zoonosis, or animal-to-human transmission, as did earlier viruses including HIV and Ebola.
Other experts quoted in the article blamed the West for maligning China and trafficking in conspiracy theories. One of those experts, the outspoken virologist Angela Rasmussen, subsequently summed up her thoughts on Twitter.
Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist, charged WHO with “failing — utterly — in its responsibility to the global public” on Twitter,This general view shows the Wuhan Institute of Virology on Feb. 3, 2021, as members of the WHO team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus visit the lab.
“We haven’t abandoned any plans. We haven’t stopped any work,” she said, even though she acknowledged that the origins investigation was becoming “increasingly difficult” because of how much time had elapsed since the first cases of the coronavirus were recorded in China more than three years ago.
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