WHO Urges China to Provide Complete Access to Determine COVID Origins

The Financial Times reported today that the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged China to provide more information regarding the origins of the COVID-19 virus, stating that the organization is ready to send a second team to Beijing to investigate the matter. Tedros told the newspaper, "We are pressing China to grant us complete access, and we ask countries to raise the issue in their bilateral meetings, to encourage Beijing to cooperate." These comments come at a time when health authorities and pharmaceutical companies worldwide are racing to update vaccines to combat new variants of the coronavirus. Tedros has long pressured China to share information it possesses about the origins of COVID-19, saying that all assumptions remain valid until Beijing takes this step. The virus first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, and many suspect it spread from a live animal market before traveling across the world, causing the deaths of approximately seven million people.