Investigating the Origins of COVID-19
In May 2020, the World Health Assembly requested that the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) work closely with partners to identify the origins of SARS-CoV-2 In November, the terms of reference for a joint China-WHO study were announced. Information, data and samples for the first phase of the study were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team. The other members of the team built upon this analysis. Although there were no findings that clearly supported natural spillover effects or laboratory incidents, the team rated zoonotic spillover effects from intermediate hosts as "highly likely" and laboratory incidents as "highly unlikely.
The authors are Jesse D. Bloom, YUJIA ARENA CHANG, Ralph S. BARIC, Pamela J. Bjorkman, Sarah COBEY, Benjamin E. DEVERMAN, David N. FISMAN, Ravindra Gupta, Akiko IWASAKI, Marc LIPSITCH, Ruslan MEDITOBH, Richard A. NEHER, and R. A. NEHER. Richard A. NEHER, RASMUS NIELSEN, NICK PATTERSON, TIM STEARNS, ERIK VAN NIMWEGEN, MICHAEL WOROBEY, DAVID A. RELMAN
Science May 14, 2021 : 694
Comments
In this report, the origin was described as highly likely to be "a zoonotic spillover effect from an intermediate host," but the two theories were not given balanced consideration. Only four of the 313 pages of the report and its appendices reported on laboratory accidents.
The author is not able to investigate these further, so it is difficult to say anything until further findings are available.
