A U.S. intelligence review was ordered by President Joe Biden to determine the virus’s origin. The intelligence review that President Joe Biden ordered proved inconclusive regarding the virus’s origin showed no evidence, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
In a commentary published in the journal Nature, the WHO-recruited experts said the origins investigation is at “a critical juncture” requiring urgent collaboration but has instead come to a standstill. The WHO-recruited experts noted that Chinese officials remain reluctant to share raw data due to concerns about patient confidentiality.
WHO sent an expert team to Wuhan earlier this year to investigate what caused the pandemic that has claimed nearly 4.5 million lives worldwide. In Wuhan, the first COVID-19 human cases were discovered in December 2019.
In their analysis, published in March, the WHO team concluded the virus probably jumped to humans from animals, and they described the possibility of a laboratory leak as “extremely unlikely.”
The WHO experts stated that their report was only a preliminary step. They added, “The window for conducting this critical inquiry is closing fast. Any delay will make some of these studies biologically unachievable.”
They stated, for example, that “Antibodies wane” and they recommend collecting more samples to test people who may have been exposed prior to December 2019. This will result in diminishing returns.
China said Wednesday that officials should “concentrate on other possible avenues that may help trace the origin” of COVID-19 and suggested studies should be pursued in other countries.
Fu Cong, a director general in China’s Foreign Ministry, said that it was a “pity” that the search for COVID-19’s origins has stalled, but it wasn’t China. He said that China has supported the science-based origin tracing efforts for years and will continue to do so.
He claimed that the U.S. was “hyping the laboratory leak theory” and trying shift the blame to China. He suggested that the coronavirus could be linked to American high-level research labs. This suggests that the United States should invite WHO to inspect some of its installations.
Marion Koopmans, her WHO-recruited colleagues, listed a few priorities for further research. These included conducting wider antibody surveys to identify areas where COVID-19 is spreading undetected in China, as well as testing wild bats, farm-raised animals, and looking into any new leads.
Other scientists worry that the best time to collect samples was missed in the first weeks following the first human cases linked to the Wuhan seafood market.
Chinese researchers took hundreds of samples from the environment immediately after the coronavirus was discovered. However, it is not clear how many people or animals were tested.
“Once wildlife traders start to shift to other types of employment because they worry about their ability to do this anymore, that window begins to close,” stated Maciej Boni of Pennsylvania State University, a biology professor who studied the origins of viruses but was not part of WHO’s team.
Boni stated that scientists may still be able pinpoint COVID-19’s animal source through the detection of closely related viruses in species such as ground squirrels, mink, and raccoon dogs. However, he stated that it could take up to five years for the necessary extensive studies.
The search for COVID-19’s origins has become a bitter source of dispute between the U.S. and China, with increasing numbers of American experts calling for the two Wuhan laboratories close to the seafood market to be investigated, something China has flatly rejected and branded “scapegoating.”
In May, Biden ordered that the U.S. intelligence agency review both the animal-to human hypothesis and the laboratory leak theory for 90 days. In July, even WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Gheybreyesus said it was premature to have rejected the lab theory, adding that research accidents are common.