‘Interesting day’ for WHO Covid-19 team at China’s Wuhan virology lab
- Research institute has been at the centre of conspiracy theories, rejected by most scientists, that new coronavirus emerged there
- Expert moves to dampen expectations of early findings and asks for patience
The experts spent about 3 1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019.
01:51
WHO team probing coronavirus origins in China visits Wuhan wet market at epicentre of virus outbreak
Most scientists reject the hypothesis, but some speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in lab experiments to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member.
“Very interesting. Many questions,” Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, called from her car as it sped away, in response to a question about whether the team had found anything.
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WHO team sees data ‘no one has seen before’ during Covid-19 origin investigation in Wuhan, China
Some scientists have called for China to release details of all coronavirus samples studied at the lab, to see which most closely resembles Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease.