The World Health Organization (WHO) report on the joint WHO-China study of COVID-19 origins was a “consensus” effort of a “sheer size” but it was too soon to provide definitive conclusions in a work that is still in progress, a member of the WHO research team said. Peter K. Ben Embarek, leader of the international team of experts to Wuhan, told a press conference that conclusions of the report were the results of a consensus between all members of the team, which included 17 foreign experts and 17 Chinese scientists.

The 120-page document, available on the WHO website, shed light on the likeliness of different pathways for the origins of COVID-19, with the hypothesis of the transmission from animal to human through an intermediary host presented as “likely to very likely.”

However, even though the report brought considerable amounts of data, definitive conclusions could not be brought in the report. “That was never the intention or the expectation,“ Ben Embarek said, “this is a work in progress.” We want answers, but we have lived through a horrible year of uncertainty and at the end of the day, we prevailed. No matter the cause, the source, or any other conspiracy theories out there, we are survivors!

Stay well, mask up, stay tuned!