‘Premature’ to Rule Out COVID-19 Lab Leak Theory: WHO Chief

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a press conference organised by the Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, on July 3, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that it was “premature” to rule out the possibility that COVID-19 could have emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, without sufficient evidence.

Walking back on a March WHO report that designated the COVID-19 lab leak theory hypothesis as “extremely unlikely,” Tedros said that based on his experience as a lab technician and immunologist, “lab accidents happen.”