The WHO Report’s Biggest Critic? WHO’s Director, That’s Who

While this week’s WHO report insisted it’s “extremely unlikely” that a Wuhan lab leaks caused the pandemic that is ravaging the world, many scientific experts say not so fast. Among those casting doubt on the WHO team’s findings is none other than the director-general of the health organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said bluntly, “I don’t believe this assessment was extensive enough.” Dr. Tedros criticized the Chinese government for blocking researchers’ inquiries.

The WHO chief joins a growing chorus of scientists and health officials who want more information about the research and security practices at the Virology Institute in Wuhan. A U.S. State Department paper issued in the waning days of the Trump administration — and not retracted by Biden officials — alleged that “several researchers” at the lab became sick in the fall of 2019 with COVID-like symptoms, before the first identified case of the disease, and claimed that the lab “has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.”

Even members of the WHO research team acknowledged that the Wuhan lab — where they spent only a few hours gathering unsurprising denials from Chinese scientists under the watchful eyes of government monitors — was not a principal target of the investigation.

According to the Washington Post, “The international team’s level of interest in exploring the lab theory seemed low, either because they saw it as a politically motivated hoax, thought the evidence pointed in other directions, or did not believe the team had a mandate — or the appropriate staffing — to investigate a Chinese lab.”

The Post quoted Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist and infectious-disease expert on the mission, who said he didn’t think the possibility of a lab accident could be ruled out but stressed that the team wasn’t equipped to investigate the hypothesis.

“So, I mean, yes, we did a three-hour visit, and it was sort of managed in the sense that there’s a lot of people there and we did a tour,” he said. “But we did get to ask questions and so on.”

So was the WHO team “equipped” to declare a Wuhan lab leak “extremely unlikely”? No — and by doing so, these researchers only undermined the already shaky image of the global health organization.

Dr. Tedros, the WHO chief