WHO chief ‘believes Covid-DID leak from Wuhan lab’ after ‘catastrophic accident’ in 2019 despite public claim ‘all hypotheses remain on the table’.
- Director-General Tedros Adhanom confided to a senior European official: Source
- The “Mail on Sunday” initially revealed concerns about the Institute of Virology in Wuhan
- The global death toll from the Covid pandemic is now estimated to be over 18 million
- The WHO, which originally branded a lab leak, fears “a conspiracy theory” and accepts the China story
The head of the World Health Organization privately believes the Covid pandemic started after a leak from a Chinese lab, a senior government source claims.
While the group publicly claims that “all hypotheses about the origins of Covid remain on the table,” the source, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said recently confided in a senior European politician that a likely explanation was a catastrophic one Accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, where infections first spread in late 2019.
The Mail on Sunday first revealed concerns by Western intelligence agencies about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where in April 2020 scientists manipulated coronaviruses taken from bats in caves almost 1,000 miles away – the same caves where Covid-19 is believed to have originated. The global death toll from the Covid pandemic is now estimated at more than 18 million.
Researchers work in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Covid was first found
The WHO was initially criticized for its respectful stance towards China during the pandemic, as well as its willingness to accept Beijing’s protests that claims of a lab leak were just a “conspiracy theory”.
However, in the absence of compelling evidence of “zoonotic” spread – the process by which a virus jumps from animals to humans – she is now adopting a more neutral public stance.
dr Tedros briefed member states on the pandemic this month, admitting: “We still have no answers as to where it came from or how it got into the human population.
“Understanding the origins of the virus is scientifically very important to prevent future epidemics and pandemics.
“But morally we also owe it to all those who suffered and died and their families. The longer it takes, the more difficult it becomes. We must accelerate and act with a sense of urgency.
“All hypotheses must remain on the table until we have evidence that allows us to reject or rule out certain hypotheses. It is all the more urgent to separate this scientific work from politics. The way to prevent politicization is for countries to share data and samples transparently and without government interference. The only way this scientific work can successfully advance is the full cooperation of all countries, including China, where the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 were reported.”
The Mail on Sunday first revealed concerns about the region’s institute for virology in 2020
It has been suggested that Covid ‘may have easily escaped while being analyzed’ by scientists.
Last year WHO set up the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) to outline what studies would be needed to identify the origins of SARS-CoV-2 – as Covid is known scientifically – and ” create a global framework”. to study the origins of emerging and re-emerging pathogens”.
An initial WHO investigation into the outbreak was fiercely opposed by China, leading to a report concluding that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was likely transmitted to humans from a bat via another unidentified species .
But after 14 nations including the UK, US and Australia criticized his findings as badly compromised, Dr. Tedros attributed the report’s flaws and ordered the new trial.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom has been reluctant to openly criticize China
The government has been cautious about blaming Covid – something China skeptics attribute to fear of offending Beijing.
However, American intelligence has made the secret Wuhan laboratory the focus of its analysis.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that staff at the institute contracted Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 – weeks before the alarm went off – and said his scientists were experimenting with a very similar bat-type coronavirus as part of military projects to the one that causes Covid.
A WHO spokesman said: “Dr. Tedros has consistently said that all hypotheses remain on the table while scientists continue their work.”