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US must share intelligence on Covid origins, WHO-affiliated expert says
Source: The Guardian
US must share intelligence on Covid origins, WHO-affiliated expert says
Theory that coronavirus leaked out of a Wuhan lab was ‘not off the table’, Dale Fisher says
Matthew Weaver
Sun 30 May 2021 16.19 BST
A health expert affiliated with the World Health Organization has called on the US to share any intelligence it has about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and the scientific community.
Last week the Wall Street Journal cited US intelligence agencies who said they were told that three unnamed members of staff at a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan were sick enough to go hospital in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms.
US intelligence chiefs later stressed they did not know how the virus was transmitted initially, but that they had two theories: either it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, Dr Dale Fisher said the theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory was “not off the table”, but remained “unverified”. Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO, urged the US to share any intelligence it had. “The Wall Street Journal is not really the way to share science,” he said.
An on-the-ground investigation by WHO experts earlier this year concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the pandemic began with a laboratory incident. But the terms of reference for their mission, agreed with China, were limited to studying the potential animal origins of the outbreak.
-snip-
Theory that coronavirus leaked out of a Wuhan lab was ‘not off the table’, Dale Fisher says
Matthew Weaver
Sun 30 May 2021 16.19 BST
A health expert affiliated with the World Health Organization has called on the US to share any intelligence it has about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and the scientific community.
Last week the Wall Street Journal cited US intelligence agencies who said they were told that three unnamed members of staff at a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan were sick enough to go hospital in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms.
US intelligence chiefs later stressed they did not know how the virus was transmitted initially, but that they had two theories: either it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, Dr Dale Fisher said the theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory was “not off the table”, but remained “unverified”. Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO, urged the US to share any intelligence it had. “The Wall Street Journal is not really the way to share science,” he said.
An on-the-ground investigation by WHO experts earlier this year concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the pandemic began with a laboratory incident. But the terms of reference for their mission, agreed with China, were limited to studying the potential animal origins of the outbreak.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/30/us-must-share-intelligence-covid-origins-expert-says
