China shoots down 2nd WHO probe into Covid virus origin
BEIJING/ WASHINGTON: China on Friday dismissed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) calls for a renewed probe into the origin of the Covid-19 virus, saying it supported scientific over political efforts to find out how the disease started.
The proposal was also made without full consultation with member states, a senior Chinese diplomat said. “We oppose political tracing... and abandoning the joint report”, which was issued after a WHO expert team visited Wuhan in January, vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu told reporters. “We support scientific tracing,” Ma added.
The Covid-19 virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 before spreading in and outside China, triggering the worst pandemic in a century. The pandemic has so far claimed more than 4.3 million lives and infected over 205.3 million people, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University’s widely followed coronavirus tracker.
In a briefing with 31 representatives and ambassadors from 29 countries in Beijing, Ma said that recently the WHO secretariat came up with the working proposal for the next phase without fully consulting with its member countries, which has been rejected and doubted.
Ma added that Beijing was always ready to cooperate in tracing Covid-19’s origin and had never rejected cooperation.
But China rejects the politicisation of the probe, Chinese state media quoted Ma as saying.
US: FDA gives nod to extra dose of vaccine
The US on Thursday authorised an extra dose of Covid vaccine for people with weakened immune systems, as the country struggles to thwart the Delta variant. Emergency use authorisation for a third injection of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines was granted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulator. “The country has entered yet another wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognisant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease,” said acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock.
Israel expands campaign for booster shots
Israel on Friday lowered to 50 from 60 the minimum age of eligibility for a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot and will also offer them to health workers, hoping to stem a surge in Delta variant infections. The director-general of Israel’s health ministry, Nachman Ash, accepted a recommendation late on Thursday by an expert advisory panel to expand third shot eligibility of the Pfizer -BioNTech vaccine.
Those eligible will be “people over 50, health care workers, people with severe risk factors for the coronavirus, prisoners and wardens”.