'MYSTERY looms as the World Health Organisation dismissed two of the leading theories on the origins of Covid after they mission to China. Both suggestions that the virus could have crossed to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market, or escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were dismissed in a lengthy joint press conference. WHO scientists appeared alongside their Chinese counterparts as they also confirmed they have ruled out the Wuhan wet market as the virus\' original origin and dismissed the lab leak as \"extremely unlikely\". Instead the team offered explanations including a possible jump from animals to humans elsewhere in China, or even that it may have come from frozen food. Dr Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission, said: \"The laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population. \"Therefore is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies.\" Dr Embarek said the WHO investigation had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed the picture of the outbreak. He added work to identify the origins of the coronavirus points to a natural reservoir in bats, but it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the outbreak was discovered in late 2019. The ten-person team are on the ground in China as they attempt to piece together where Covid came from - with the virus going on to kill 2.2million worldwide. The expert team arrived in China on January 14 and they have now finished their research in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first confirmed to have emerged on December 31, 2019. The press conference started after a 20 minute delay as the world anxiously awaited news. Professor Liang Wennian, the leader of the Chinese team, started off the conference and almost completely dismissed the wet market as an origin. He said the team believed the virus originated in animals - likely bats or pangolins - but the intermediate hosts that allowed it to jump to humans are \"yet to be identified\". Wennian ruled out the Huanan Seafood Market as an origin source as he appeared to suggest Covid originated somewhere else other than Wuhan. He also said no bats in the wild in China had been found to be carrying viruses that may have mutated in Covid-19. The virus could have been circulating in other regions before it was identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, the expert explained. Prof Wennian said: \"As most emerging virus originate from animals requires deep analysis of evolution of viruses in animal reservoir. \"Generally speaking a virus causing pandemic must be highly adaptive to human environment, each step driven by natural selection.\" Read on COVID BOMBSHELL Mystery as WHO says Covid did NOT start in Wuhan wet market after all and lab leak is ‘extremely unlikely’ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13991711/china-wuhan-covid-origin-wet-market/ From Brexit breaking news to HD movie trailers, The Sun newspaper brings you the latest news videos and explainers from the UK and around the world. Become a Sun Subscriber and hit the bell to be the first to know Read The Sun: http://www.thesun.co.uk Like The Sun on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesun/ Follow The Sun on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSun Subscribe to The Sun on Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/The_Sun/1633225139'
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