Lies, deception plague WHO Covid-19 probe

Three Australian scientists have joined 24 international researchers urging the WHO to launch another investigation into the origins of COVID-19 with or without Beijing’s involvement.

The WHO team leave their hotel after it wrapped up its investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Wuhan in February. Picture: AFP

Three senior Australian scientists are among 24 international researchers to have denounced the World Health Organisation’s probe into the origins of COVID-19, saying wilful politicisation, lies and deception have stymied proper scientific inquiry and access to vital evidence.

This week, professors Colin Butler, Nikolai Petrovsky and Rosemary Mcfarlane joined 21 others in penning an open letter to the WHO calling for another full investigation into the origins of the pandemic. “What we want is a situation where proper scientific method and inquiry can be pursued without corrupt politicisation,” Professor Petrovsky said. “Now we’re hearing from the WHO that they never said they were conducting an ­investigation.”

Professor Petrovsky, whose research group at Flinders University uses artificial intelligence modelling to understand whether a particular species started a virus transmission, said the WHO investigation succumbed to pressure and became highly politicised. He said the WHO was not the right inter­national institution to conduct such a probe. “We need a new international mechanism that compels countries to permit proper investigations into these issues,” he said.

A new probe was not intended to point fingers at any one country, the group said.