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STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT:
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 12 FEBRUARY 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"I want to start by thanking all members of the international team for their work. This has been a very important scientific exercise in very difficult circumstances. The expert team is working on a summary report which we hope will be published next week, and the full final report will be published in the coming weeks. We look forward to receiving both reports, which will be released publicly."
3. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded. Having spoken with some members of the team, I wish to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and studies."
5. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"We have always said that this mission would not find all the answers, but it has added important information that takes us closer to understanding the origins of the virus. The mission achieved a better understanding of the early days of the pandemic and identified areas for further analysis and research."
7. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"The number of reported cases of COVID-19 globally has declined for the fourth week in a row, and the number of deaths also fell for the second consecutive week. These declines appear to be due to countries implementing public health measures more stringently. We should all be encouraged, but complacency is as dangerous as the virus itself. Now is not the time for any country to relax measures, or for any individual to let down their guard."
9. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Peter Ben Embarek, WHO expert on food safety and zoonoses:
"We have a much, much better understanding of what happened in December 2019. We have been able to demonstrate that there was substantial circulation of the virus in Wuhan in December 2019. We've been able to link genetic sequences of different patients across the city in December with their physical location in and outside the market across the time from early December to end of December. So, we have a much, much better understanding of what happened there in December, much better understanding of what happened in the market, the role of the market."
11. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Peter Ben Embarek, WHO expert on food safety and zoonoses:
"We have also been able to trace back all the suppliers of different wild animal products into the market as a potential clue for further studies. We have also much a better feeling and understanding that there was no widespread and no large cluster of the disease in Wuhan or elsewhere around Wuhan in the months prior to December 2019. So, we have we have a much better understanding of what happened. We still are far away from understanding the origin and identifying animal species or the pathways from which the virus could have entered the human in in December."
13. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Prof Marion Koopmans, Head of the Department of Viroscience, University of Rotterdam: "There's not a clear candidate for intermediate hosts yet, but the work on the market and the traceback process that was done there does provide some leads for next steps in the studies. And I think those are as important parts of a quest of this as data that data that tell you the positive news. "
15. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
The WHO mission in Wuhan, China, “achieved a better understanding of the early days of the pandemic and identified areas for further analysis and research," the agency’s chief, Tedros Ghebreyesus said at the press conference in Geneva on Friday.
All hypotheses about the origin of the pandemic “remain open and require further analysis and studies," Tedros said. "We have always said that this mission would not find all the answers, but it has added important information that takes us closer to understanding the origins of the virus.”
Commenting on the current state of the pandemic, Tedros said "the number of reported cases of COVID-19 globally has declined for the fourth week in a row, and the number of deaths also fell for the second consecutive week. These declines appear to be due to countries implementing public health measures more stringently. We should all be encouraged, but complacency is as dangerous as the virus itself. Now is not the time for any country to relax measures, or for any individual to let down their guard."
Also speaking at the press conference, Dr Peter Ben Embarek, WHO’s expert on food safety and zoonoses said "we have a much, much better understanding of what happened in December 2019. We have been able to demonstrate that there was substantial circulation of the virus in Wuhan in December 2019. We've been able to link genetic sequences of different patients across the city in December with their physical location in and outside the market across the time from early December to end of December. So, we have a much, much better understanding of what happened there in December, much better understanding of what happened in the market, the role of the market."
He also said "we have also been able to trace back all the suppliers of different wild animal products into the market as a potential clue for further studies. We have also much a better feeling and understanding that there was no widespread and no large cluster of the disease in Wuhan or elsewhere around Wuhan in the months prior to December 2019. So, we have we have a much better understanding of what happened. We still are far away from understanding the origin and identifying animal species or the pathways from which the virus could have entered the human in in December."
Joining via videolink, professor Marion Koopmans, Head of the Department of Viroscience at the University of Rotterdam said "there's not a clear candidate for intermediate hosts yet, but the work on the market and the traceback process that was done there does provide some leads for next steps in the studies. And I think those are as important parts of a quest of this as data that data that tell you the positive news. "
