A joint World Health Organization-China report on the origins of the coronavirus says it most probably jumped from animals to humans via an intermediate animal host, downplays the possibility it leaked from a lab and suggests next steps in a complex search mired in controversy, The Washington Post has reported based on a draft copy of the report.

The report, set to be released late in the evening (IST) on Tuesday, was expected to shed light on what happened at Wuhan in China, from where the coronavirus had broken out in late 2019 and early 2020.

However, the findings are far from conclusive and will be overshadowed by questions about China’s lack of transparency — and the WHO’s apparent inability to seek more information.

The team recommends further study of the possible path of transmission between animals and humans and on transmission through frozen food — a once-fringe theory favored by the Chinese government. It does not recommend additional research on the lab leak hypotheses.

But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who did not visit Wuhan,  did not give any clear message at a news conference on Monday, saying “all hypotheses are open” and warrant future study.

Given China’s coverup of the outbreak in Wuhan, the WHO’s early praise  for the country’s response and the fact that it took a full year to get a joint Chinese-international team on the ground for a brief visit, the critical but challenging search for clues faced skepticism from the start.

US sees China hand in report

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN  last week he had concerns about “the methodology and the process,” including “the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.”

“I don’t think the global community can have confidence in this report, because of China’s lack of transparency on necessary data sources, as well as the close relationship the team had to have with China,” said Larry Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University.

“This was an expert panel who worked diligently but were blocked from finding all that it could,” he continued. “As a result, we may never know the origins of the pandemic.”

China’s coverup

Questions about Chinese interference will be hard to shake. The terms of reference set out by WHO member states called for a collaboration between Chinese and foreign scientists, not an independent investigation or audit. Much of the data was collected by Chinese scientists ahead of the visit and then analyzed by the joint team.

Among the report’s findings is that the market linked to early cases was not necessarily the source of the virus, as some once believed, but may have been the site of an early outbreak or an accelerator, as a virus that was circulating in December 2019 spread between close-packed stalls.

It notes the earliest reported case, from Dec. 8, did not have any link to the market, but it suggests that mild and asymptomatic cases may have gone undetected. The report, therefore, does not draw a firm conclusion and calls for additional research on the role of that and other markets.