All COVID-19 origin theories remain on the table, WHO leader says

The World Health Organization said all hypotheses for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic are still on the table, after U.S. authorities this week backed the theory that the virus originated from a lab.

“If any country has information about the origins of the pandemic, it is essential for that information to be shared with WHO and the international scientific community,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing on Friday.

Tedros has called repeatedly for more transparency from China, and on Friday he said it will be impossible to be sure about the origins of the virus until authorities there share data. A joint WHO-China team has said a spread from wild animals is far more likely than a leak out of a human lab — an assessment FBI Director Christopher Wray contradicted this week.

Tedros said he has written to and spoken with high-level officials in China, as recently as a few weeks ago, and that until China is transparent and conducts all the necessary investigations, all scenarios will be on the table.

The FBI’s comments came after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. Energy Department had determined the virus may have been the result of a lab leak.

“The continued politicization of the origins research has turned what should be a purely scientific process into a geopolitical football,” Tedros said. This “only makes the task of identifying the origins more difficult.”