Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, who initially dismissed the lab leak theory as “extremely unlikely,” now considers it a “probable hypothesis,” according to the Washington Post, which cites a documentary airing on Danish television channel TV2.
“An employee who was infected in the field by taking samples falls under one of the probable hypotheses,” Dr. Embarek told the interviewers.
“This is where the virus jumps directly from a bat to a human. In that case, it would then be a laboratory worker instead of a random villager or other person who has regular contact with bats,” he explained.
“So it is actually in the probable category,” the Danish scientist reiterated.
Dr. Embarek oversaw the international scientists who traveled to China in January to determine the origins.
Chinese scientists and officials withheld information and pressured them to drop the theory, he said.
WHO scientists weren’t allowed to see proper data and the theory wasn’t even discussed until two days before the team was scheduled to leave China, he told interviewers.
“In the beginning, they didn’t want anything about the lab [in the report], because it was impossible, so there was no need to waste time on that,” said Ben Embarek.
“We insisted on including it, because it was part of the whole issue about where the virus originated.”
The scientist admitted his team was denied access to books or documents “directly from the laboratory.”
“We got a presentation, and then we talked about and asked the questions we wanted to ask, but we did not get to look at any documentation at all,” he said.
“It could also be that someone wants to hide something. Who knows?”
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