WHO to release official report on Covid19 origin today
A report on the origins of COVID-19 set to be released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) today finds animal to human transmission the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to news agencies, the report will find that it is most likely that a bat, somewhere in China or in Southeast Asia, getting the virus into animals and then that getting into the market in Wuhan.
The report has been drafted by a team of international experts appointed by the WHO who visited China’s Wuhan city earlier this year. The seafood market in Wuhan was the Covid-19 cluster of human cases in December 2019. Since then, the infection has now spread to almost all the countries killing more than 2.7 million people.
Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats. However, the report says that the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Beijing should be transparent about the COVID-19 outbreak and there is a need for accountability.
