The World Health Organization is reviving its stalled investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 virus as agency officials warn that time is running out to determine how the pandemic that has killed more than 4.7 million people world-wide began.
A new team of about 20 scientists—including specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and geneticists and animal-disease experts versed in how viruses spill over from nature—is being assembled with a mandate to hunt for new evidence in China and elsewhere.
The new effort comes months after another WHO-led inquiry visited Wuhan, the Chinese city that was the site of the first confirmed Covid-19 outbreak in December 2019. In a final report, the team said the data provided by Chinese scientists during the mission was insufficient to answer the critical questions of when, where and how the virus began spreading.
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“The question is, will it be enough?”[Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law director Lawrence Gostin] said. “China still holds all the cards, the WHO lacks power and it’s inconceivable to me that a new committee will be able to negotiate access to China…This is building a beautiful committee with nowhere to go.”
