Coronavirus origins: how unseen Wuhan research notes could hold the answers – and why lab-leak rumours refuse to die

Politics may have hampered the WHO’s investigation into Covid-19, but that doesn’t detract from China’s fundamental problem with transparency

Secrecy has only served to foster distrust among the international scientific community – and fuel speculation that Sars-Cov-2 escaped from a lab

Reading Time:14 minutes

Experts from around the world have called for China to provide evidence and raw data to aid in the search for the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:30am, 10 Apr 2021Updated: 11:40am, 12 Apr 2021

Every five years, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute hosts a summer open day for the public featuring party games, a barbecue, and the chance to meet real scientists from among the 450 working at one of Europe’s oldest centres for research into infectious diseases.

The fun and festivities have a serious side, too: introducing younger generations to the science of fighting disease.

Among the ice cream and balloons, children can examine live ticks under a magnifying glass; learn how vaccines work using teddy bears; and even play the role of a disease detective looking for the cause of an outbreak.

For Andreas Kurth, a virologist and lab director who has worked at the Berlin institute for more than 15 years, the open days help give the average German an insight into the work that is being done at the laboratories, which serve a similar function to the US Centers for Disease Control and employ around 1,300 people across five departments. “You need the trust of the public, always,” Kurth said.

This year the open day has been cancelled because of Covid-19 – a disease first identified more than 8,000km (5,000 miles) away in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which like Berlin is home to several laboratories dedicated to virus research.

SLEEPLESS IN WUHAN