August 13, 2021

expert reaction to media coverage of Peter Embarek comments in Danish TV documentary about the origins of SARS-CoV-2

Peter Ben Embarek, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2, featured in a documentary released Thursday by Danish television channel TV2.

Prof David Matthews, Professor of Virology, University of Bristol, said:

“This does not really change anything – it is a possibility that the first patient was an unwitting (and possibly unaware) scientist collecting bat samples who contracted the virus from bats or their droppings etc. but this has always been a possible source of the pandemic.  There are many other possibilities too.

“I also notice that Dr Embarek is quoted as saying “It is a wrong translation from a Danish article” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/12/who-origins-embarek/) so perhaps we need to wait for additional clarity directly from Dr Embarek.

“We need a lot more information (not specifically science data but just a deeper understanding of the early days) to shine a light on the origins of the virus and we also need to face the possibility that we may never have the certainty we want.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.