The origin of the new coronavirus is one of the questions that scientists and the general public are asking. These questions have also led to the creation of conspiracy theories that flood social media and other media.
In this episode, Dr. Elmer Huerta talks about the 120-page report from the World Health Organization on his research regarding the origin of the virus.
Hi, I’m Dr. Elmer Huerta And this is your daily dose of information on the new coronavirus. Information that we hope will be useful to take care of your health and that of your family.
One of the questions that has generated more controversy among the public, and therefore, more conspiracy theories, is the one that refers to the origin of the pandemic.
Today we will see what the long-awaited report by the World Health Organization says about this.
What does the WHO say about the origin of the new coronavirus?
For starters, the 120-page report released by the WHO director on March 30 was written by an international team of 17 experts from China and 17 from other countries, including experts from the WHO, the Global Alert Network and Outbreak Response and the World Organization for Animal Health.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) participated as an observer.
After the initial virtual meetings, the experts traveled to complete their study in the city of Wuhan, in China, for a period of 28 days, from January 14 to February 10, 2021.
The report concludes that SARS-CoV-2, which causes covid-19, probably originated in an animal – most likely the bat – then passing to an intermediate animal and from there, to humans.
It also concludes that SARS-CoV-2 may have started to spread among humans no more than a month or two before it was first discovered in Wuhan in December 2019.
The four possible scenarios, according to the WHO
The report considered four different scenarios as possible origins of the virus.
- The first is that the virus originated in some animal – most likely a bat – and, from this, it spread directly to humans.
- The second, and which is the accepted scenario so far, is that the virus originated in a first animal, most likely a bat. Then, it passed to an as yet unidentified intermediate animal, and from there to the human being. It is speculated that the intermediate animal may have been the pangolin.
- The third is that the virus has been introduced through cold food.
- And the fourth scenario is that the virus has entered the community through a laboratory accident. The report says – and this is very important – that it was seen as an extremely unlikely avenue.
What does the WHO say about theories about the laboratory?
This point in the lab is important. His mention gave rise to many conspiracy theories that speculate that the virus was created by scientists in a laboratory, and then released into the community.
That scenario is not considered in the report. It is speculated that what could have happened is that while investigating SARS-CoV-2 obtained from an animal, a researcher has accidentally become infected and brought the virus to the community.
The investigating commission ruled out this possibility. Scientists say a team member from the Wuhan lab presented them with antibody test results done to staff at the beginning of the pandemic, looking for signs that a scientist was infected at that time, but that those tests were negative.
According to one of the committee members, since the fundamental objective of the team of experts is to investigate the animal origin of the new coronavirus, the investigation of the origin in a laboratory did not have the necessary depth.
What is the world saying about the report?
The reception of the report was greeted with skepticism by some countries.
For example, the governments of the United States, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia and the United Kingdom expressed – in a statement – their concern and called for a Independent and fully transparent, science-based assessment that points the way to assessing these types of outbreaks in the future.
Finally, one of the committee members said that the idea was that, because they did not have time or because they could not get certain authorizations from the Chinese government, they were planning a second phase of the studies.
The committee member said he was not yet sure when WHO scientists could return to Wuhan to conduct that second stage of the investigation.
As in mystery movies, then, the report concludes that the search for the origin of the new coronavirus will continue.
Do you have questions about the coronavirus?
Send me your questions on Twitter, we will try to answer them in our next episodes. You can find me at @Drhuerta.
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