An interim report from the World Health Organization (WHO) summarizing the investigation into the origin of the coronavirus outbreak in China has been ruled out, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Fox News was unable to reach WHO immediately, but top investigative team scientists said the public’s demand for answers was too great to be supported in an interim report.
“By definition, a summary report does not contain all the details,” Peter Ben Embarek told the New York-based publication. “So, from there [is] so much interest in this report, just a summary would not satisfy readers’ curiosity. “
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Following the team’s return from their month-long trip to China earlier this year, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus initially said that an interim report would be released in the coming weeks, with a full report to follow.
The WHO investigation was criticized for its limited scope and potentially compromised by the Chinese government.
A group of international scientists called for a new independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus in a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, questioning the “scientific independence” of the Chinese individuals involved in the joint investigation.
“Although the ‘collaborative’ discovery process ordered by the World Health Assembly … aims to allow a thorough examination of the origins of the pandemic, we believe that the structural limitations built in this effort make everything less impossible for the mission called by WHO to achieve this aspiration “, concluded the group of 26 scientists.
The letter further highlights “that the international members of the joint team have had to rely on information that the Chinese authorities have decided to share with them, and that any report by the joint team must be approved by the Chinese and international members of the joint team.”
The group questioned the ability of the investigation to adequately research the origin of the virus and to answer whether the coronavirus pandemic was or was not the result of “natural overflow or [a] laboratory / research-related incident. “
The WHO investigation was first examined when Embarek said that any theory about a virus that escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology was “extremely unlikely”.
U.S. officials in the Trump and Biden administration expressed their frustration at China’s continuing resistance to transparency regarding the coronavirus.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with PBS on Wednesday: “China has not been fully and effectively transparent, be it at the beginning of this crisis, when it was most important, or even today, as investigations go on trying to get to the bottom of what happened. “
China, for its part, called for further investigation into the theories they proposed about the virus having started outside of China and transferred to Wuhan in frozen foods.
But American officers in the food and medicine industry they rejected the suggestion that frozen foods could be carriers of COVID-19.
The WHO team arrived in China in January for a month-long trip, but two weeks of the investigation trip were quarantined, Reuters reported. The scientists were then supervised by Chinese guides and prevented from speaking to members of the community due to the restrictions of COVID-19.
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“We cannot allow an investigation into the origins of the pandemic that is anything less than absolutely complete and reliable,” argued the international group of scientists. “The efforts so far are not a complete, reliable and transparent investigation.”