[News] WHO mission visits Wuhan laboratory, place of controversial theory about the origin of COVID-19

[#Steeven.™]

Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology on Wednesday, the subject of a controversial theory that places it as a possible origin of the coronavirus in this Chinese city.

The inspection of this institute, which has several high-security laboratories where researchers work with dangerous coronaviruses, was one of the most anticipated stages of the WHO team's investigation.

The communist regime waited more than a year to authorize the visit of the UN agency experts, who had to undergo a 14-day quarantine before starting work last week.

With such a delay, many analysts doubt that international experts will find any telling signs of the beginning of the epidemic.

The convoy of vehicles passed the security check on Wednesday morning to enter the Institute of Virology. One of the experts, Peter Daszak, told reporters that the team of a dozen researchers expected "a very productive day and ask all the questions that need to be asked."

Daszak later tweeted that it was an "extremely important meeting with staff" and an "open and frank discussion."

But at the moment there are no definitive answers.
WHO experts spent about four hours at the facility, before leaving without speaking to the press waiting outside.

Policemen in black uniforms and masks lined the street to separate the crowd of reporters from the vehicles.

According to the state media Global Times, the team also visited the P4 laboratory, the first maximum security laboratory in Asia equipped to handle type 4 biological agents such as Ebola, which represent a high individual risk of contagion and are also very harmful. for life.

 

- The laboratory theory -
Former US President Donald Trump accused this institute in Wuhan (central China) of letting the virus that caused COVID-19 escape, causing a global pandemic.

His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, insisted last year that there was "significant evidence" that the virus left the laboratory, without presenting evidence and admitting that he was not certain about it.

China, which denies being responsible for the outbreak of the epidemic in 2019, implies, without proving it, that the virus may have been imported.

Instead, Beijing insists on its success in containing the infections and in its production of vaccines, exported to several countries.

On Saturday, its authorities organized a tour with the WHO team to show the recovery of the city since the outbreak of the pandemic.

On Sunday, experts visited the market where the first source of contagion was detected more than a year ago, a "crucial" stage in the WHO mission, according to Daszak.

This expert said in his tweet that the team met on Wednesday with Shi Zhengli, one of China's top experts on bat coronavirus and deputy director of the Wuhan laboratory.

This virologist raised questions in a June 2020 interview with an American scientific journal in which she stated that she was initially concerned about the possibility that the virus had escaped from the laboratory.

But subsequent inspections revealed that none of the gene sequences matched the viruses stored at the institute. "I haven't slept for several nights," she said.

She even later claimed that she was "betting her life that [the new coronavirus] had nothing to do with the laboratory," according to Chinese state media.