US backs WHO on Covid origin probe
Meeting with the health agency ef, Blinken said the t phase conducted hina should be nsparent’
US secreof state Antony Blinken met head of the World Health nization, Tedros Adhanom breyesus, in Kuwait on nesday where he pledged upport to the UN agency’s e in China into the origin of oronavirus pandemic. he U.S. supports the HO plans for additional ies into COVID-19 origin, ding in (the People’s Repubf China), to better underd this pandemic and prevent re ones,” Blinken said in a t. a statement, state departt spokesman Ned Price said Blinken “stressed the need he next phase (of the investin) to be timely, evidenced, transparent, expert-led, free from interference”. nd he “emphasised the ortance of the international munity coming together on matter of critical concern”. he UN health agency has under intensifying pressure new, more in-depth investin of how the disease that illed more than four million le around the world first rged. The WHO was only to send a team of independinternational experts to an in January, more than a after Covid-19 first surfaced e, to help Chinese counterparts probe the pandemic’s origins. Long derided as a rightwing conspiracy theory and vehemently rejected by Beijing, the idea that Covid-19 may have emerged from a lab leak has been gaining momentum.
Beijing has repeatedly insisted that a leak would have been “extremely unlikely”, citing the conclusion reached by a joint Who-chinese mission to Wuhan in January.
But earlier this month, the WHO said a second stage of the international probe should include audits of Chinese labs, amid increasing pressure from the US for an investigation into a biotech lab in Wuhan.
Delta variant drives virus spread to China provinces
China on Thursday reported small coronavirus outbreaks driven by the Delta variant in three provinces as a cluster linked to an eastern airport spreads.
The flare-up, which began after nine workers at the Nanjing airport tested positive on July 20, has since seen 171 cases detected in Jiangsu province, while infections have spread to at least four other provinces.
It is geographically the largest spread for several months, challenging China’s aggressive containment efforts which have relied on mass testing, lockdowns and swift contact tracing.
The province of Sichuan reported three new cases on Thursday while Beijing reported one locally transmitted case, the first in six months. Separately, a hotel in downtown Beijing has been locked down after media reported an imported case was found among the guests.