WHO says Covid ‘most likely’ originated in animals and spread to humans, dismisses lab leak theory

An international team of scientists led by the World Health Organization said Tuesday that the coronavirus “most likely” originated in animals before spreading to humans and dismissed a theory that the disease had been leaked by a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

In terms of understanding what happened in the early days of December 2019, did we change dramatically the picture we had beforehand? I don’t think so… Did we improve our understanding? Did we add details to that story? Absolutely.

Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s food safety and animal disease specialist and chairman of the investigation team