The World Health Organization’s investigations team looking into the origins of the coronavirus has decided to abandon an interim report regarding a recent mission to Wuhan, China, The Wall Street Journal reports.
A WHO team traveled to Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, last month as part of its ongoing investigation, but they had insufficient access and were not able to properly investigate the different possible sources of the virus. The mission was conducted jointly with scientists and officials in China, whose approval will be needed for any report.
Beijing, the Journal notes, is pressing the WHO to investigate whether the coronavirus could have originated outside China and spread to Wuhan in frozen food packaging.
Peter Ben Embarek, a food-safety scientist and the leader of the WHO team, said that they will release a summary along with the finalized report, which “will be published in coming weeks and will include key findings,” according to a spokesperson for the WHO.
“By definition a summary report does not have all the details,” said Embarek. “So since there [is] so much interest in this report, a summary only would not satisfy the curiosity of the readers.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently criticized China over their lack transparency during the pandemic and with the investigation.
“China has not been fully and effectively transparent either at the start of this crisis, when it mattered most, or even today as investigations are going forward trying to get to the bottom of what happened,” Blinken told PBS on Wednesday.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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