(CN) --- The political and scientific conflict between the United States and China over the origins of the coronavirus ravaging the world deepened on Tuesday after the World Health Organization issued a long-awaited report into what an international team of experts discovered about the virus during a trip to Wuhan.
Upon its release, the U.S. accused China of withholding critical data from the team of international experts convened by the WHO to study the virus’ origins and called for a “transparent and independent analysis.” In turn, Chinese leaders said it was time to start looking outside China for where the virus came from.
Adding to the tensions on Tuesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, criticized China for not sharing more data with its team of experts. Tedros has not taken a hard line with Beijing since the pandemic started and former U.S. President Donald Trump accused him of protecting China, which supported his selection as WHO chief.
“In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Tedros said. “I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”
In a news briefing, Peter Embarek, the lead WHO scientist on the team, said the experts did not get all the data they wanted. The report relied on tens of thousands of samples of humans and animals collected by Chinese scientists and medical workers.
“We got access to quite a lot of data in many different areas,” Embarek said. “But of course there are areas where we had difficulties getting down to the raw data. And there are many good reasons for that. In China, like in many other countries, there are restrictions on privacy laws that forbid the sharing of data, including private details to outsiders, in particular if the data is moving out of the country.”
The 313-page report provides the fullest analysis yet of what happened when the coronavirus pandemic started in December 2019 in the industrial city of Wuhan in central China. But it also raises many questions and is inconclusive. Its findings were laid out in early February by the expert team's leaders at the end of the four-week trip to Wuhan.
The report was produced by the WHO-convened team and Chinese scientists. They agreed the virus most likely jumped from animals to humans, a theory that is widely supported by scientists. But the report said the virus' origins remain a mystery and that extensive sampling in China found no animals carrying the virus and no evidence it was spreading between humans before the outbreak in Wuhan.
In the report's most politically charged finding, it dismissed as “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked from a laboratory, a theory pushed by the Trump administration.
The theory isn't entirely without some basis. After the virus emerged in Wuhan in December 2019, speculation quickly grew that it might have accidentally leaked out of laboratories in Wuhan where scientists were experimenting with coronaviruses. Focus zeroed in on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a high-level lab known for its specialized work on coronaviruses.
But the report did not recommend much further investigation into this theory, a conclusion that has left many in the U.S. seething because the WHO team was not provided full access to the lab's records and drew its conclusions from speaking with the lab's staff and managers. American media outlets have featured interviews in recent weeks with Trump administration officials and American scientists suggesting a lab leak may have occurred.
On Tuesday, Embarek said the investigators will keep an “open mind” about the lab leak theory.
“This is the first time that we have been able to discuss openly this possibility,” he said. “Initially, it was just speculations all over the place as you remember through 2020. Now, we have a process to discuss it, we've put it into our report, it has been assessed.”