What should we make of the WHO Covid report?

Should we believe the conclusions of the World Health Organization (WHO) report into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which, as expected, dismissed the possibility of a laboratory accident while giving credence to the theory that the virus was imported via frozen foods? The first thing to note is that the report does not even claim to be independent — it is billed as a ‘joint WHO-China study’. It deserves to be read as such: as the product of an undemocratic government that has every incentive to deflect any responsibility for a pandemic that has, to date, been blamed for 2.7 million deaths globally.

The report puts forward four hypotheses: that the disease was the result of direct zoonotic transmission — animal to human — most likely a bat; that it arrived via an intermediate animal host — developing in one animal, jumping to a second and then on to humans; that it arrived via frozen foods imported from abroad; and that it occurred as a result of a laboratory accident.