James Forsyth James Forsyth

How China tried to suppress the lab leak investigation

The lead figure in the World Health Organisation’s work on the origins of Covid-19 has given a remarkable interview to Danish TV. Peter Ben Embarek has revealed just how much political pressure the investigation came under and made clear that he thinks the lab leak hypothesis should not, pace the official report, be dismissed as extremely unlikely.

Embarek told TV2 ‘Until 48 hours before we finished the whole mission, we still had no agreement that we would talk about the laboratory part in the report, so there was a discussion right up to the end about whether to include it or not.’ He said that, ‘initially, they [the Chinese] didn’t want anything about the laboratory included because it was impossible and so it would be a waste of time. We insisted on including it because it was part of the whole issue about where the virus came from.’ He adds, ‘I said: “Listen. We need to include this, otherwise we don’t have a report. It’s not going to be approved or accepted as a reasonable, credible report.’”

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the dismissal of the lab leak theory back in March 2020 was a huge mistake

Embarek also makes clear the obstacles that were put in him and his team’s way: ‘We didn’t get a look at lab books or documents directly from the lab. We got a presentation and then we got to talk about and ask the questions we wanted to ask, but we didn’t get to look at any documentation at all.’ As he points out, the behaviour of the Chinese side raises questions:

‘We should investigate the hypothesis of a laboratory leak, it is for several reasons. One of them is the way in which the Chinese government has behaved. They have tried to suppress all research in this area.

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