A report compiled by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in collaboration with China on the origins of coronavirus claims it leapt from bats to humans through another animal and not via a laboratory leak in the city of Wuhan, a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press claims.
The long-awaited study has been repeatedly delayed since it was commissioned last year, prompting doubts about input from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its aim of diverting attention away from the controversial government research laboratory, at one stage implicating the United States military, without evidence, and urging the W.H.O. to launch probes into the virus’s origins outside of China.
A W.H.O. official said late last week he expected it would be ready for wider public release “in the next few days.”
The AP received what appeared to be a near-final version on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a W.H.O.-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to its release. The diplomat did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.
The researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the virus named SARS-CoV-2. Topping the list was transmission through a second animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread through “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.
The W.H.O. report repeats an assertion made last month by the U.N. body that China was in the clear and absolved of blame for the catastrophic global spread of the deadly disease, as Breitbart News reported:
The closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats, which are known to carry coronaviruses.
However, the report says that ‘the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.’
The draft 400-page report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of cases in December 2019.
“No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn,” the report says, dismissing the cover-up claims that have been ciculating now for well over 12 months.
Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an expose on the W.H.O. investigation of the origins of the coronavirus.
According to the WSJ report, the Chinese government had near-total control over the W.H.O. visit to Wuhan, from deciding who could be on the team to dictating what the visiting scientists were allowed to see.
The government also forced the W.H.O. team to watch Chinese political propaganda instead of seriously digging into the early days of the pandemic.
The WSJ said it uncovered “fresh details about the team’s formation and constraints that reveal how little power it had to conduct a thorough, impartial examination – and call into question the clarity its findings appeared to provide.”
The WSJ detailed the shocking amount of control Beijing reportedly ended up having over the belated investigation that finally occurred in January and February 2021 – right down to Chinese operatives being allowed to “review” W.H.O.’s final report and “make possible changes” ahead of its public release.
China previously urged the W.H.O. to find the “origin” of the coronavirus in America.
“The U.S. has the most diverse virus strains, which make it the most suitable place for conducting study of origins,” a Communist Party-approved “expert” told the state propaganda outlet Global Times in February.