WHO expert ‘had concerns’ about lab close to 1st COVID cases

By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer

LONDON (AP) — When a World Health Organization-led team traveled to China earlier this year to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a top official said he was worried about biosafety standards at a laboratory close to the market where the first human cases were detected, according to a documentary released Thursday by TV2, a Danish television channel. The Wuhan lab was potentially handling coronaviruses without the required expertise, the WHO official said. But months later, when the WHO released its dense report on its mission to Wuhan, the U.N. health agency concluded that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” to have caused COVID-19.