WHO fails to find a definitive answer for how Covid-19 began
An expert group charged by the World Health Organization to investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic started released its final report, reaching an unsatisfying conclusion: Scientists still aren't sure how the worst health emergency in a century began.
At a press briefing Marietjie Venter, the group's chair, said that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals.
That was also the conclusion drawn by the first WHO expert group that investigated the pandemic's origins in 2021, when scientists concluded the virus likely spread from bats to humans, via another intermediary animal. At the time, WHO said a lab leak was 'extremely unlikely'.
Venter said that after more than three years of work, WHO's expert group was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not Covid-19 was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for hundreds of genetic sequences and more detailed biosecurity information that were made to the Chinese government.
'Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded,' she said. 'It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.'
ADVERTISEMENT
She said that the 27-member group did not reach a consensus; one member resigned earlier this week and three others asked for their names to be removed from the report.
Venter said there was no evidence to prove that Covid-19 had been manipulated in a lab, nor was there any indication that the virus had been spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China.
'Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive,' Venter said, referring to the scientific name for the Covid-19 virus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was a 'moral imperative' to determine how Covid began, noting that the virus killed at least 20 million people, wiped at least US$10 trillion (NZ$16.5 trillion) from the global economy and upended the lives of billions.
Last year, the AP found that the Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus' origins in the first weeks of the outbreak in 2020 and that WHO itself may have missed early opportunities to investigate how Covid-19 began.
US President Donald Trump has long blamed the emergence of the coronavirus on a laboratory accident in China, while a US intelligence analysis found there was insufficient evidence to prove the theory.
Chinese officials have repeatedly dismissed the idea that the pandemic could have started in a lab, saying that the search for its origins should be conducted in other countries.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last September, researchers zeroed in on a short list of animals they think might have spread Covid-19 to humans, including racoon dogs, civet cats and bamboo rats.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Spinoff
3 hours ago
- The Spinoff
Inside the rise of injectables and the new age of cosmetic tweaks
From TikTok facelifts to 'baby Botox', cosmetic fixes are booming. What's driving the quest for perfection, asks Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. An age-old industry, a new face Devoting a Bulletin to cosmetic procedures might seem a bit left-field, but with Alex Casey's cover story on Botox leading The Spinoff this morning, it's the perfect chance to take stock of how – and why – so many New Zealanders are choosing to change their faces. From a few discreet units of 'baby Botox' to the full ordeal of a surgical lift, cosmetic medicine is broader and more accessible than ever. Just look at the global fascination with Kris Jenner's new face, or the TikTok shockwaves caused by Michelle Wood, the American woman who recently went to Mexico for a frankly incredible face lift that cost her just US$14,000 (NZ$23,000). It's no wonder 'cosmetic tourism' is booming, with places like Thailand luring New Zealanders seeking cheaper fixes than they can get at home. But as plastic surgeon Chris Adams told The Project in 2023, bargain shopping for your face comes with serious risks. 'I have seen patients who've come back, who've had much greater costs managing complications than they would've had if they'd funded the surgery in New Zealand,' he says. Is everyone using Botox? While a Mexican face lift is a step too far for most of us, Botox is firmly in the mainstream – as Alex discovered firsthand. At 33, she's decades away from needing (or wanting) major surgery, but the sight of lines starting to etch themselves onto her face led her to a cosmetic nurse's office. 'Also, every day on Instagram I see women twice my age with foreheads that look 10 years younger than mine and it makes me feel insane so yeah, no wonder I have fucking frown lines,' she writes. In her piece, Alex talks to women who swear by injectables, women who recoil from them, and women – like herself – who feel both tempted and furious about the prospect. As she leaves the injector's office, 'I am bubbling with an incandescent fury that I don't know where to direct,' she writes. 'I am angry at the nice nurse for hurting my feelings, but I am angrier at myself for asking her to.' Selfies, filters and 'Instagram face' What's driving this collective obsession? Part of the answer is in our pockets. As Julia Coffey wrote for The Conversation, selfie-editing apps like FaceTune and FaceApp give people a glimpse of a new and improved version of themselves with smoother skin, bigger eyes or sharper cheekbones. Cosmetic procedures offer a chance to make that fantasy self a reality. And as Jia Tolentino explored in The New Yorker (paywalled), all those subtle digital edits are helping to create a new beauty monoculture: 'Instagram Face', which Tolentino described as 'a single, cyborgian face… young … of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips … it's distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic.' What began with the Kim Kardashians of the world has trickled down through celebrities, influencers and selfie-editing apps to become an achievable (if expensive) aesthetic standard for women everywhere. Social media – or something else? While social media is an easy villain, the real driver could be more basic: it's simply easier than ever to buy a better face. As Martha Gill puts it in The Guardian, 'it is more affordable, more widespread and more advertised. Another huge barrier to treatment is meanwhile falling away: stigma.' That new openness is something Alex's piece lays bare. For many women she spoke to, the deciding factor wasn't a celebrity's wrinkle-free forehead, but a friend's. One got her first injections after complimenting a pal: 'She said, 'thanks, I get Botox' – then I looked into it and started getting it too.' One user summed up how many of us feel: 'So many of my friends get it, and it makes you feel like you're in this race against time – and everyone else.'
1News
18 hours ago
- 1News
WHO fails to find a definitive answer for how Covid-19 began
An expert group charged by the World Health Organization to investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic started released its final report, reaching an unsatisfying conclusion: Scientists still aren't sure how the worst health emergency in a century began. At a press briefing Marietjie Venter, the group's chair, said that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals. That was also the conclusion drawn by the first WHO expert group that investigated the pandemic's origins in 2021, when scientists concluded the virus likely spread from bats to humans, via another intermediary animal. At the time, WHO said a lab leak was 'extremely unlikely'. Venter said that after more than three years of work, WHO's expert group was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not Covid-19 was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for hundreds of genetic sequences and more detailed biosecurity information that were made to the Chinese government. 'Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded,' she said. 'It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.' ADVERTISEMENT She said that the 27-member group did not reach a consensus; one member resigned earlier this week and three others asked for their names to be removed from the report. Venter said there was no evidence to prove that Covid-19 had been manipulated in a lab, nor was there any indication that the virus had been spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China. 'Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive,' Venter said, referring to the scientific name for the Covid-19 virus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was a 'moral imperative' to determine how Covid began, noting that the virus killed at least 20 million people, wiped at least US$10 trillion (NZ$16.5 trillion) from the global economy and upended the lives of billions. Last year, the AP found that the Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus' origins in the first weeks of the outbreak in 2020 and that WHO itself may have missed early opportunities to investigate how Covid-19 began. US President Donald Trump has long blamed the emergence of the coronavirus on a laboratory accident in China, while a US intelligence analysis found there was insufficient evidence to prove the theory. Chinese officials have repeatedly dismissed the idea that the pandemic could have started in a lab, saying that the search for its origins should be conducted in other countries. ADVERTISEMENT Last September, researchers zeroed in on a short list of animals they think might have spread Covid-19 to humans, including racoon dogs, civet cats and bamboo rats.
Scoop
2 days ago
- Scoop
‘Our Kids Cry For Food': Most Gaza Families Survive On One Meal A Day
The meals which families are able to obtain are nutritiously poor — thin broths, lentils or rice, one piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known as duqqa. Adults are routinely skipping meals in order to leave more for children, the elderly and the ill. And still, on average since January, 112 children have been admitted on a daily basis for acute malnutrition. '[When my children wake up at night hungry] I tell them 'Drink water and close your eyes.' It breaks me. I do the same – drink water and pray for morning,' as one parent said. Risking lives for food Due to these extreme food shortages, people in Gaza are forced to risk their lives on a daily basis to access small amounts of food. Since 27 May, 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 have been injured trying to access food, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza. 'The majority of casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarized zones,' said Jonathan Whittall, head of office for the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since the end of May, the US-Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing aid in Gaza, bypassing the UN and established NGOs. The UN has said Palestinians who seek aid from the GHF face threats of gunfire, shelling and stampedes. 'We don't want to be out there. But what choice do we have? Our kids cry for food. We don't sleep at night. We walk, wait, and hope we come back,' one Palestinian told WFP. Systems near collapse Protracted conflict and bombardment have pushed almost all service systems in Gaza to the brink. As a result of fuel shortages, only 40 per cent of drinking water facilities are functional and 93 per cent of households face water insecurity. The fuel shortage is also negatively affecting the provision of medical services with medical equipment and medicine storage reliant on electricity. For the first time since the resumption of limited aid entry on 19 May, nine trucks containing medical items offloaded supplies on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday. Displaced, over and over again Since the resumption of Israeli bombardment in Gaza on 18 March after a 42-day ceasefire, over 684,000 Palestinians have been displaced. And for almost all of them, this is not the first time. With over 82 per cent of Gaza either designated as an Israeli militarized zone or under a displacement order, there are few places — much less safe places — that the newly displaced can go. They have been forced to take shelter in overcrowded displacement camps, makeshift shelters, damaged buildings and sometimes just on open streets. Schools are no longer buildings of learning but of shelter. 'Schools have transformed into empty shelters, devoid of any elements of a safe learning environment,' said Kamla, a teacher with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Nuseirat. All of these shelters are experiencing rapidly deteriorating conditions as a result of insufficient shelter materials, according to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the Secretary-General. 'No shelter materials have entered Gaza since 1 March, before the Israeli authorities imposed a full blockade on aid and any other supplies for nearly 80 days,' he said at a briefing on 19 June. 'While some commodities have subsequently been allowed in small quantities, tents, timber, tarpaulins and any other shelter items remain prohibited.' The UN and its partners have 980,000 shelter items prepared to dispatch into Gaza once authorization is granted by the Israeli authorities. 'Symbols of hope' Since the beginning of the violence in Gaza, UNRWA has continued to work tirelessly to provide displaced and injured Palestinians with many types of support. "Despite all this, the eyes and hopes of our community remain fixed on us. UNRWA staff are not merely service providers. In the eyes of people in Gaza, we are pillars of resilience, lifelines of stability and symbols of hope,' said Hussein, an UNRWA worker in Gaza City. But as fuel shortages continue and only small amounts of humanitarian aid — food, medicine, shelter materials — trickle through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the job of UNRWA workers and other humanitarians in Gaza is increasingly untenable. 'We have lost all the tools needed to work, so we have had to adapt,' said Neven, a psychosocial UNRWA worker in Khan Younis. Despite their best efforts, the bombardment and devastation of Gaza continues with children going hungry and some even expressing suicidal thoughts. 'I told my daughter her deceased father is safe, eating and drinking with God,' one mother said. 'Now, she cries every day and says, 'I'm hungry and want to go to my father because he has food to feed us.''
