World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom (L) shakes hands with Chinese regime leader Xi jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jan. 28, 2020. Naohiko Hatta/AFP via Getty Images
The World Health Organisation (WHO) team conducting the investigation into the origins of the CCP virus has failed to determine where the virus originated.
Peter Ben Embarek, head of the WHO mission, said further studies are required to determine if the virus was imported or if the virus had been spread directly from animals to humans.
He implied the virus was introduced into Wuhan from elsewhere, as there was no evidence showing a SARS-CoV-2 spread in Wuhan prior to Dec. 2019, despite studies saying otherwise.
“The findings indicated that there is no substantial unrecognised circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan in the latter part of 2019,” Embarek said during the press conference.
Moreover, Embarek decisively dismissed the hypothesis that the disease was leaked from a lab. Rather, he said while accidents do happen, lab leaks were “extremely unlikely” and did not warrant any future inquiries.
Liang Wannian, head of the China WHO team, said in order for a virus leak to occur, the virus needed to exist in the lab first.
“The whole scientific community around the world has refuted the theory that it was engineered by humans,” Liang said. “There was no existing virus of SARS-CoV-2 [in the labs], therefore, there’s no way the virus could be leaked.”
Peter Ben Embarek (R) talks with Liang Wannian (L) during a press conference in the city of Wuhan, in China's Hubei province on February 9, 2021. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images
The team also suggested one possible source of the contagion could have been frozen food products.
This theory was first put forward by CCP state-run media agency the Global Times in a December article where they asked “did the early outbreak in Wuhan originate from imported frozen food ?”
However, this hypothesis has already been discounted by the WHO themselves, who say there is no evidence of people contracting the virus from frozen food.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt agreed with the dismissal of the lab leak theory, saying he received no advice supporting claims the virus was “human created” or “out of a laboratory”.
“It’s likely to have come from the animal kingdom... that’s been the strong advice from our medical advisors here in Australia,” Hunt told Sky News.
Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan said he was not surprised with the team’s findings and believes the origin of the virus may remain a mystery.
“We needed this inquiry to start pretty much straight away if there was any hope of finding conclusions,” Canavan told Today. “It would be a lot better for the world to know where these sort of things come from so we can prevent them again.”
“But that’s all spilt milk now. We’re probably never going to find out,” he said.
The team’s visit to China was heavily controlled by the communist state, with journalists kept well away and the absence of a publicly available full itinerary.
Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” said the mission was designed to not find out anything and called it “worse than worthless”.
“This is a parroting of a Beijing narrative,” Chang told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program. “This just shows you that the WHO mission is completely worthless—actually is worse than worthless because it’s throwing people off the trail.”
Protesters, including one holding a sign denigrating the World Health Organization, march to the Kosmos events venue where the World Health Summit was originally scheduled to take place on October 25, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
An AP investigation found the communist party strictly controlled all scientific research related to the outbreak and barred researchers from speaking to the press. With a tight control on all information surrounding the virus, state-run media outlets have often tried to change the narrative surrounding the origins of the virus.
The CCP has accused countries including the U.S., Italy, Russia, and many more, for being the source of the virus as it has continued to reject calls for a completely independent investigation.
Australia’s call for the inquiry into the origins of the virus has caused the relationship between the two nations to rapidly deteriorate with China using punitive economic sanctions to retaliate to Australia’s request for an inquiry.
Currently Australia’s beef, cotton, timber, lobster, wine, barley, lamb and coal have all been hit with trade blockages and tariffs, prompting calls for trade diversification and less reliance on exports to China.
Rebecca Zhu
Author
Rebecca Zhu is based in Sydney. She focuses on Australian national affairs.
