Name: WHO team dismiss theory Covid-19 leaked from Chinese lab - BBC News
Uploaded: 2021-02-09T18:55:18.000Z
Duration: 5 min 26 s
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a team of international experts investigating the origins of covert 19 have all but dismissed a theory that the virus came from a lab.

Basic passive voice

The conclusion was made by a W H O team on a visit to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first detected.

Modal verbs - B1

There have been a number of unsubstantiated allegations that the pandemic could have resulted from an accident at a Chinese labs studying coronaviruses in bats.

The W H O team in Wuhan have visited markets, research institutes and hospitals and say new information had been uncovered.

But there were still plenty of work to do so in terms off understanding.

What happened in the early days in December 2019 did we?

Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathways and one that will, um and require more studies and more specific, targeted research.

Well, our correspondent Stephen McDonald is in Wuhan, he says.

Four theories have been looked at the W H O scientists and their Chinese counterparts.

Number one, that the coronavirus came from a specific animal and jumped directly into human beings.

That it went from animal into an intermediary animal that into human beings number three that it's come from, Ah, frozen surface, possibly frozen seafood into human beings.

Number four that it comes from a lab lick.

Now, in terms of that fourth, they're saying, Don't waste any more time and effort on that.

It would have been very difficult for it to have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

And they said they couldn't find a single lab anywhere in the world studying Ah, coronavirus, just like this one.

And that's where they're saying that the effort needs to go now much, much more research into that route.

They're also recommending that globally databases scientific databases need to be much more integrated, sharing information, enabling tracking.

They want mawr work to be done into the study off the survivability off the coronavirus on frozen surfaces.

Now they're saying that it can be transported over quite long distances on, say, a frozen fish.

What they don't know is when it gets the other end.

One possibility is a combination of two of those theories that is, that it could be on a frozen wild animal.

So a combination of being frozen and coming from a wild animal on, that's how it all kicked off.

Either way, a lot more work needs to be done.

There will be a final report, though, but although they're saying they've made significant breakthroughs, they think they are further down the path of understanding the origins of the coronavirus.

It's still going to take a long time, maybe years, until we can really pin this down.

That was our correspondent, Stephen McDonald, reporting there from Wuhan.

Our correspondent John Southworth, spoke to Dr Peter Data Zach outside the W H O press conference in Wuhan.

He asked him whether the absence of any evidence of a natural origin one year on surprises him.

Dad, Zak says it's only a matter of time before the sources found.

If you listen very closely to that process, what you will find is that there is a clear indication of supply chains going into that market that take you from places where SARS cov to relatives are into that market.

So their supply chains going in from other countries as well.

On there are reservoirs, animals that we know a susceptible to related viruses.

Uh, evidence of that was found in frozen food in that market that was clearly stated in the press conference just then.

I think that's the clue is just house and they might have got in.

We also know about the cold chain work on.

I think that, you know, you heard the opinion of the team that spoke about the whole group.

In our opinion, on the very hypotheses, I think it stands alone.

Given that this report rules out a lovely isn't your credibility on that a little undermined by the fact that you've been saying that even before you came here?

What you find here is a group of very large group of experts have looked at this.

They've been to the very slabs around the region.

Talk to people, ask critical questions, got critical answers on they've come to their conclusion on.

I have a swell on what they say is extremely unlikely.

 Our correspondent John Stallworth, speaking there to Dr Peter Death Sack. 