Covid-19 origin search abandons lab leak theory, China’s leader in joint WHO mission says

Liang Wannian says decision to concentrate on other possibilities was reached unanimously by the team

He denies there have been disagreements as expert team’s final report is delayed until next week

Reading Time:3 minutes

Members of the WHO-led team investigating Covid-19’s origins arriving at the Wuhan Institute of Virology last month. Photo: Reuters

Published: 1:11pm, 18 Mar 2021Updated: 7:13pm, 18 Mar 2021

Future work on identifying the origins of the new coronavirus which causes Covid-19 will not focus on the “extremely unlikely” hypothesis that it leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan unless new evidence emerges, according to the Chinese lead of the joint World Health Organization-China investigation.

“The expert team agreed unanimously that it is extremely unlikely the virus leaked from the lab, so future virus origin tracing missions will no longer be focused on this area, unless there is new evidence,” said Liang Wannian, a former senior National Health Commission official, in an interview with Global Times, the nationalist tabloid affiliated to party mouthpiece People’s Daily.

Liang Wannian, team leader of the WHO-China joint mission investigating the origin of Covid-19. Photo: Simon Song

Liang’s remarks followed Tuesday’s announcement by the WHO that the team’s final report, expected this week, had been postponed because it was “simply not ready”.

“What we hear from the technical experts, from the mission members, is that the report most likely will now come out next week,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said.

Liang denied the report’s delay was due to any dispute among the mission’s experts, who reported at the end of their investigation last month that the lab hypothesis was unlikely. Initial findings suggested the most likely pathway for the virus had been an intermediary host species, which required further study, they said.