EXCLUSIVE: WHO expert investigates COVID-19 'origin story'
Speaking exclusively to Sky News from Wuhan, microbiologist Dominic Dwyer said it was clear from his tour of the wet market - associated with many early coronavirus infections in China – how the health situation quickly escalated. A team of 15 experts from the World Health Organisation have visited markets in Wuhan as part of an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Mr Dwyer said the market linked with many early cases of the virus was now closed but from the tour “one got a very good idea of what the state of the market must have been like well on a year ago”. “With many outbreaks it's often impossible to find patient zero, and indeed virus zero … but certainly one got a clear impression that the market could easily have amplified what was going on,” he said. The professor revealed further investigations will need to be conducted in regards to movements in Wuhan before December 2019, as well as studying the types of viruses animals – such as bats – can carry. “To be realistic I think we’ll get certainly a preliminary report and then some later reports on the outcomes of what we’ve been doing, as well as setting up the studies that are needed, that will take time to further investigate,” he said. “Origin stories are really hard to do, and they do actually take quite a lot of time.” Probed as to how much of the WHO investigation is independent, Mr Dwyer said it was a combination of their own independent research and examining information provided by Chinese authorities. “Clearly we can’t go back and collect the data from late 2019 and early 2020, so of course we’re reliant on the work that they have done, so we’re really now starting to get down to going through, almost case by case, of those early cases with the information they have provided,” he said. “I think one’s reasonably confident that we’re getting the information that China collected at that time.”
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Speaking exclusively to Sky News from Wuhan, microbiologist Dominic Dwyer said it was clear from his tour of the wet market - associated with many early coronavirus infections in China – how the health situation quickly escalated. A team of 15 experts from the World Health Organisation have visited markets in Wuhan as part of an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Mr Dwyer said the market linked with many early cases of the virus was now closed but from the tour “one got a very good idea of what the state of the market must have been like well on a year ago”. “With many outbreaks it's often impossible to find patient zero, and indeed virus zero … but certainly one got a clear impression that the market could easily have amplified what was going on,” he said. The professor revealed further investigations will need to be conducted in regards to movements in Wuhan before December 2019, as well as studying the types of viruses animals – such as bats – can carry. “To be realistic I think we’ll get certainly a preliminary report and then some later reports on the outcomes of what we’ve been doing, as well as setting up the studies that are needed, that will take time to further investigate,” he said. “Origin stories are really hard to do, and they do actually take quite a lot of time.” Probed as to how much of the WHO investigation is independent, Mr Dwyer said it was a combination of their own independent research and examining information provided by Chinese authorities. “Clearly we can’t go back and collect the data from late 2019 and early 2020, so of course we’re reliant on the work that they have done, so we’re really now starting to get down to going through, almost case by case, of those early cases with the information they have provided,” he said. “I think one’s reasonably confident that we’re getting the information that China collected at that time.”
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