From ‘open minded’ to ‘underwhelming,’ mixed reactions greet latest COVID-19 origin report

Some content has been removed for formatting reasons. Please view the original article for the best reading experience. “Further studies needed.” That’s the main message in a preliminary report released today by a scientific advisory group convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) to clarify the cloudy origin of COVID-19. But in stark distinction to a report from an earlier WHO committee, which drew controversy in 2021 by all but dismissing that SARS-CoV-2 might have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, this panel recommends more investigations into the lab-leak scenario possibility. “All hypotheses must remain on the table until we have evidence that enables us to rule certain hypotheses in or out,” said WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a speech today to member states. “This make[s] it all the more urgent that this scientific work be kept separate from politics.” Yet keeping politics out may be impossible: Panel members from China, Russia, and Brazil noted in a footnote that they saw no reason for more research on whether the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, long the target of suspicions—and conspiracy theories—because it studied bat coronaviruses. The panel, formally known as the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) and established in October 2021, has 27 members from different countries who have diverse areas of expertise. Maria Van Kerkhove...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news