WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday pressed China to share its information about the origins of COVID-19, saying that until that happens, all hypotheses remained on the table, more than three years after the virus emerged.
“Without full access to the information that China has, you cannot say this or that,” Ghebreyesus said in response to a question about the origin of the virus.
“All hypotheses are on the table. That’s WHO’s position and that’s why we have been asking China to be cooperative on this,” he said.
Photo: REUTERS
“If they would do that, then we will know what happened or how it started,” he said.
The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, with many suspecting it spread in a live animal market before fanning out around the world and killing nearly 7 million people.
Data from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were briefly uploaded by Chinese scientists to an international database last month.
It included genetic sequences found in more than 1,000 environmental and animal samples taken in January 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, the location of the first known COVID outbreak.
The data showed that DNA from multiple animal species — including raccoon dogs — was present in environmental samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, suggesting that they were “the most likely conduits” of the disease, a team of international researchers said.
However, in a non-peer-reviewed study published by Nature journal this week, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention scientists have disputed the international team’s findings.
The samples provided no proof the animals were actually infected, they said.
They were also taken a month after human-to-human transmission first occurred at the market, so even if they were COVID-positive, the animals could have caught the virus from humans, they said.
The latest Chinese information offered some “clues” on origins, but no answers, WHO technical lead for COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said.
The WHO is working with scientists to find out more about the earliest cases from 2019 such as the whereabouts of those infected, she said.
The WHO still does not know whether some of the research required had been undertaken in China, she said.
The WHO has also asked the US for original data that underpinned a recent study by the US Department of Energy that suggested a laboratory leak in China had likely caused the COVID-19 pandemic, she added.
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
Using virtual-reality (VR) headsets, students at a Hong Kong university travel to a pavilion above the clouds to watch an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated Albert Einstein explain game theory. The students are part of a course at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that is testing the use of “AI lecturers” as the AI revolution hits campuses around the world. The mass availability of tools such as ChatGPT has sparked optimism about new leaps in productivity and teaching, but also fears over cheating, plagiarism and the replacement of human instructors. Pan Hui (許彬), a professor of computer science who is leading