Despite a high-profile visit to China by a team of international experts in January, the world is no closer to knowing the origins of COVID-19, according to one of the authors of an open letter calling for a new investigation into the pandemic.
“At this point we are no further advanced than we were a year ago,” said Nikolai Petrovsky, an expert in vaccines at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and one of 26 global experts who signed the open letter, published on Thursday.
The WHO mission to Wuhan, where the coronavirus was identified, has come under fire, with critics accusing the WHO of relying too much on politically compromised Chinese fieldwork and data. Team members also said China was reluctant to share vital data that could show COVID-19 was circulating months earlier than first recognised.
The open letter said the WHO mission “did not have the mandate, the independence, or the necessary accesses to carry out a full and unrestricted investigation” into all theories about the origins of COVID-19.
“All possibilities remain on the table and I have yet to see a single piece of independent scientific data that rules out any of them,” said Mr. Petrovsky.
Meanwhile, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team is “working on its final report, as well as summary report, which we understand will be issued in the week of the 15th of March.”
