By Fi Willan, Kate Kachor (Nine News, 2021-02-10)
An Australian
scientist involved in the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 says he believes
the virus started in China and had been circulating in the community as early
as mid-November.
His view is
disputed by the Chinese scientists in the World Health Organisation joint
investigation who say the disease might have been brought into China on frozen
food packets.
Professor
Dominic Dwyer, a microbiologist and infectious diseases expert with NSW Health
Pathology, said the evidence for an origin outside China was "very
limited" in an exclusive interview with 9News on the day he returned from
the Chinese city of Wuhan. Professor Dwyer was the only Australian in a
14-strong team working for the WHO.
WHO experts
last night said COVID-19 most likely first appeared in humans after jumping
from an animal, dismissing as unlikely the claim that the virus leaked from a
Chinese lab. The team also found no evidence that the disease was spreading
widely any earlier than the initial outbreak that flared in the second half of
December 2019.
"I think
it started in China, I think the evidence for it starting elsewhere in the
world is actually very limited," Professor Dwyer told 9News from hotel
quarantine in Sydney.
"There is
some evidence but it's not really very good. I think it's most likely that it
came from a bat. We know that other viruses that are closely related to
(COVID-19) are present in bats.
"We know
that other viruses like MERS and SARS back in 2003 also came from bats. Now
these bats don't respect borders of course so they are present not just in
China but in other parts on South East Asia and indeed elsewhere around the
world."
Professor
Dwyer said what surprised him most about his time in Wuhan was the degree of
attention given to the politics of the meeting. "It's one thing discussing the science
and all of us are used to doing that, it's another thing, talking about the
politics around this and see responses change around the politics," he
said.
Despite China
making it clear it was not happy about Australia calling for an inquiry into
the origins of COVID-19, Professor Dwyer said he felt no hostility. "The
Chinese were very hospitable hosts, everyone worked together very well, it was
a joint mission after all," he said. "There were some clear
differences of opinion and there were some quite firm and heated exchanges over
things but in general everyone was trying to do the right thing and certainly
WHO got more data than they've ever had before, and that's some real
progress."
Professor
Dwyer said one of the key differences was trying to get an agreement about what
was happening just prior to the virus outbreak in the market in Wuhan. "Some of the other evidence for example -
genetic analysis of the virus and so on - would show the virus has probably
been circulating maybe from mid-November, early December," he said. "We also know the Chinese were reporting
the people who went to hospital were really sick, but we now know - and to be
fair they didn't know at the time. But we now know there's a lot of ordinary
transmission going on between otherwise healthy people, so there must've been
many, many more cases in December than were identified."
Asked whether
he believed there would be a definitive conclusion on how the virus started,
Professor Dwyer said he hoped it would.
"Many of
these outbreaks actually take years to sort out, so part of the WHO work was
advising what sort of studies need to be done to try and sort this out over the
next year or so," he said. "Remember with SARS it took well over a
year before the bat virus was identified, I would expect it will be similar
here. There's clearly a lot of work that needs to be done, not just in China
but in the region and elsewhere around the world."
Professor Dwyer said he believes the explosion of COVID-19 in the market in Wuhan was really an amplifying event. "The virus had probably circulating some good few weeks beforehand amongst people in the community," he said.
澳大利亚一位科学家认为，新冠病毒源于中国，并在2019年12月之前就已在中国流行
（作者：菲·威兰，凯特·卡彻，澳大利亚9News，2021-02-10）
参加世界卫生组织新冠病毒起源调查工作的一位澳大利亚科学家说，该病毒源于中国，而且早在11月中旬就已在中国社区传播。
中国科学家在世卫组织的联合调查中对他的观点提出异议，他们说这种病毒可能是通过冷冻食品包装从外国带进中国的。
澳大利亚微生物学家、悉尼大学医学院免疫学与传染病临床学教授多米尼克·德维尔（ Dominic Dwyer），在从中国武汉回来的当天接受9News独家专访时表示，关于新冠病毒起源在中国以外地区的证据“非常有限”。德维尔是世卫组织14人调查组中唯一的澳大利亚人。
世卫组织专家组昨晚表示，新冠病毒最可能在从动物身上传播给人类，并反驳了关于该病毒从武汉病毒研究所实验室泄漏的可能性。该调查组还表示，没有发现证据表明新冠肺炎在2019年12月下半月之前就在武汉爆发。
德维尔教授在悉尼一家酒店说：“我认为它起源于中国，我还认为它起源于世界其他地区的证据非常有限。”“存在一些证据，但并不是很好。我认为它很可能来自蝙蝠。我们知道蝙蝠身上还有其他与新冠病毒密切有关的病毒。”“我们知道，早在2003年，其他病毒（例如MERS和SARS）也来自蝙蝠。现在，这些蝙蝠当然不理会国界，因此它们不仅在中国存在，而且还在东南亚其他地区以及世界各地存在。”
德维尔说，他感到最惊讶的是（调查组）开会时对政治问题的关注程度。他说：“讨论科学问题是一回事，而我们所有人都习惯这一点：而谈论有关此事的政治问题以及外界反应发生的变化，这是另一回事。”
尽管中国对澳大利亚呼吁调查新冠病毒的起源，明确表示不满，德维尔教授说他并未感到中国对他抱有敌意。他说：“中国人热情好客，每个人都很好地合作，毕竟这是一个联合任务。” “（调查组）存在明显的意见分歧，并相当坚定而激烈地交换了意见，但总的来说，每个人都在尝试做正确的事情，而且世卫组织肯定比以往任何时候都获得了更多数据，这是真正的进展。 ”
德维尔教授说，调查组在统一意见之前存在的主要分歧之一，是武汉海鲜市场爆发病毒之前发生的事。他说：“例如，其他一些证据（对病毒的遗传学分析等）可能表明，新冠病毒可能在11月中旬或12月初就开始传播。” “我们过去知道，中国医生报告了一些去医院的人确实生了病，但现在我们知道，公平地说，他们当时不知道（这些病人患了新冠肺炎）。我们现在还知道，新冠病毒已在本来是健康人之间发生了大量的一般性传播，因此武汉12月出现的新冠病例肯定比现已查明的要多得多。”
在被问到他是否相信病毒起源是否能得出明确结论时，德维尔教授表示希望这样。他说：“许多这类病毒的爆发实际上需要花费数年的时间才能解决（起源问题），因此，世卫组织的任务之一是建议需要进行哪些类型的研究，并尝试在明年左右解决这个问题。” “请不要忘记，SARS花费了一年多时间才发现它来自蝙蝠，我希望新冠病毒起源问题的解决与此类似。显然，不仅在中国，而且在东亚地区，以及世界各地，还有很多工作要做。”
德维尔教授说，他相信武汉海鲜市场爆发新冠肺炎确实是一个后续事件。他说：“这种病毒可能已在社区里传播了好几个星期。”
