Coronavirus: facing criticism and attacks, WHO team readies report on Wuhan probe

The team of international scientists that went to Wuhan in January to probe the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, flew out a month later into a storm of criticism, as well as remaining questions about the source of the virus and China’s cooperation with the investigation.

Another issue coming to prominence is the limited official authority the World Health Organization has in running such an investigation in a sovereign nation.

It has been a week since the team held a press conference in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first identified in late 2019. A WHO official at the event called a theory that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory there “highly unlikely” and appeared to lend credence to another, promoted by Beijing, that it could have arrived on imported frozen goods.

In the days since, the American and British governments have questioned the findings, with the US saying China had not provided the transparency needed. Team members in media interviews have explained some limitations to the scope of their mission and WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has come out to assure that “all hypotheses” about the virus origin remain under consideration.