Covid origin needs to be probed further, say leading scientists
The origin of the Covid-19 virus is still unclear and there is not yet enough evidence to say conclusively if it occurred naturally or was caused by a lab leak, a group of leading scientists have said in a letter.
The coronavirus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed 3.34 million people, cost the world trillions of dollars in lost income and upended daily life for billions of people.
“More investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic,” said the 18 scientists, including Ravindra Gupta, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Cambridge and Jesse Bloom, who studies the evolution of viruses at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” the scientists including David Relman, professor of microbiology at Stanford, said in a letter to the journal Science.
The authors of the letter said the World Health Organization’s (WHO) initial investigation into the origin of the virus had not made a “balanced consideration” of the theory that it may have come from a lab incident.
“We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the scientists said, adding that an intellectually rigorous and dispassionate investigation needed to take place. “We note that at the beginning of the pandemic, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus - often at great personal cost.”
UK sees B.1.617 variant’s cases more than doubling
England remains on track for the latest easing of its coronavirus lockdown next week, but is taking no chances after a doubling of cases of a variant first detected in India, the government said.
Accelerated vaccinations, surge testing and possible local restrictions are all in the mix after infections of the variant rose from 520 last week to 1,313 this week, officials said. The health ministry said the B1.617.2 variant is “beginning to spread increasingly rapidly” in northwest England.
Japan widens emergency ahead of Olympic Games
Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga added three more prefectures to a state of emergency, as his government confronts a worsening surge of infections just over two months before Tokyo is set to host the Olympics.
The emergency status, which includes Tokyo, will be expanded to the island of Hokkaido as well as Hiroshima and Okayama.