World Health Assembly under lens as demand for fuller probe into China link to Covid-19 grows
Hindustan TimesAmidst a US intelligence report that advocates a larger probe into the possibility that the Covid-19 virus could have leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, the World Health Assembly is meeting today to pass an anodyne resolution on setting up of an inter-governmental working group to further discuss the submitted three reports investigating the origins of the global pandemic and take further action. According to diplomats based in Geneva, not much is expected out of the WHA except for a resolution and asking the WHO instituted group of experts to launch the second phase of investigation into the origins of the virus as the experts in its report had given a clean pass to Wuhan laboratory for possible leakage of the deadly virus. A State Department fact sheet had earlier said that several researchers at the lab developed symptoms "consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness," WSJ reported. The Wall Street Journal reported that the current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment.