WHO investigation team found “unprecedented information” does not rule out that the virus came from Wuhan laboratory

The World health Organization (WHO) investigation team that went to Wuhan to investigate Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) has been released from quarantine and is now in action. Peter Daszak, a British zoologist and zoonotic disease expert who is a member of the team, said that the Chinese have presented “unprecedented information” and that the team is open to all possibilities of the origin of the virus and does not rule out the possibility that the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory.

According to Sky News, Zak said they had visited the South China wholesale seafood market, where they spoke with managers and vendors, and then also with people who had been screened for the virus, to get direct information, before they could find no clues in the data everywhere, however, now that the Chinese researchers shared the data with them, “they are sharing data with us that we’ve never seen before, that no one has ever seen before. They’re talking to us about all the possible routes of transmission of the virus, and we’re really making progress, I think everyone on the team would say that.”

The WHO investigation team is also planning to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, and although China denies claims that the institute leaked the virus, Zucker said “that possibility has not been ruled out. He said everyone is aware of the hypothesis that the laboratory may have been involved, and they will ask key questions about it, and if there is any data, they will follow it to investigate. “Everything is out in the sun and we are keeping an open mind,” he said.

Zucker is optimistic about finding the origin of the virus, saying the investigation team will write a report at the end of the mission naming the most likely scenarios. But even if the origin is found, Zucker said, virus variants mean people will live with the virus forever, and the virus could become endemic and stay with humans forever, “but we’ll accept to live with it. We will have an effective vaccine, and we will modify the vaccine to resist the Variant virus.”