China: The patient zero of the COVID-19 pandemic may have been a Wuhan laboratory worker specializing in SARS-COV-2 research prior to its spread worldwide, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) lead investigator. ‘An employee (of a laboratory) infected in the field taking samples falls under one of the likely hypotheses. This is where the virus passes directly from bats to humans,’ Peter Embarek, head of the delegation of international scientists sent to China by the WHO to detect the beginning of Covid-19, told the Danish public channel TV2.
A documentary entitled ‘The mystery of the virus – a Dane in search of the truth in China,’ was aired on Danish TV on Thursday, in which the scientist talks at length about the mission he led in Wuhan and is critical of China.
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In the first phase of research, conducted at the beginning of the year in Wuhan – the cradle of the pandemic -, researchers concluded on March 29 that the possibility of an incident in a lab remained ‘extremely unlikely’.
According to Embarek, his team has had difficulty discussing this theory with Chinese scientists. ‘Until 48 hours before the end of the mission, we still did not agree to mention the hypothesis of the laboratory in the report,’ explained Embarek in the documentary. He noted that it was as a result of these exchanges that the WHO delegation was given permission to visit two laboratories that conduct research on bats.
On these visits, ‘we had the right to a presentation, then we were able to speak and ask the questions that we wanted to ask, but we did not have the opportunity to consult any documentation,’ Embarak stated in the documentary.
Scientists pointed out that no bats live in the wild in Wuhan, and that the only people likely to have come in contact with bats suspected of harboring Sars-Cov-2 were employees of the city laboratories.
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