The theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was triggered by a laboratory leak “remains viable” and “more investigation is still needed to determine [its] origin,” a group of scientists wrote on Thursday in the journal Science, throwing doubt on a recent World Health Organization report about the origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The outlook. The letter by world-renowned scientists will rekindle debates about the Chinese influences in the WHO, which critics allege risk compromising the organization’s scientific integrity on matters deemed sensitive by Beijing.
The WHO-China team that wrote the report, published on March 30, did visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology but wasn’t authorized to investigate what had happened on the premises. And skeptics, led by the U.S. government, noted that China had limited access to information by international scientists.