The World Health Organization is having second thoughts about its dismissal last year of the lab leak theory origin for the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted that there was a “premature push” to rule the lab leak theory as “extremely unlikely.”

Tedros sought to blame the unscientific rush to judgement on a multitude of “unintended errors” within the WHO and vowed to correct them. Something tells us these errors were more of the politically intended variety rather than accidental, but we digress. At least the WHO is finally admitting that the lab leak hypothesis is not some crack-pot conspiracy theory.

“I was a lab technician myself, I’m an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen,” Tedros stated, adding, “It’s common,” therefore “checking what happened, especially in our labs” is important. Furthermore, “If we get full information, we can exclude [the lab leak theory].”

Well, good luck with getting full information. Beijing has already prevented a serious investigation into its Wuhan lab, which WHO officials seemed all to happy to play along with in their March report in which they suggest that a natural or zoonotic origin of COVID was “a likely to very likely pathway.” Again, what has changed between then and now to have the WHO essentially reverse itself?

The short answer appears to be a concern over credibility. As considerable consensus has grown among scientists for the possibility, if not probability, of the lab leak theory origin, the WHO seems to have also realized that it can’t simply succumb to Beijing’s propaganda. Tedros tacitly acknowledged as much when he stated, “I think we owe it to the millions who suffered and the millions who died really to understand what happened.”