W.H.O. Investigators to Scrap Plans for Interim Report on Probe of COVID-19 Origins

Betsy McKay, Drew Hinshaw, and Jeremy Page, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link):

A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of Covid-19 is planning to scrap an interim report on its recent mission to China amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and an appeal from one international group of scientists for a new probe.

The group of two dozen scientists is calling in an open letter on Thursday for a new international inquiry. They say the WHO team that last month completed a mission to Wuhan — the Chinese city where the first known cases were found — had insufficient access to adequately investigate possible sources of the new coronavirus, including whether it slipped from a laboratory. […]

Beijing, meanwhile, is pressing for similar WHO-led missions to other countries, including the U.S., to investigate whether the virus could have originated outside China and spread to Wuhan via frozen food packaging.

Beijing calling for WHO-led missions to other countries in search of COVID’s origin is like O.J. Simpson’s vow to search for the “real killers” of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

★ Saturday, 6 March 2021