WHO Seeks to Take Political Heat Out of Virus Origins Debate

GENEVA - The World Health Organization said on Friday it was setting up a new group to trace the origins of the coronavirus, seeking to end what it called "political point scoring" that had hampered investigations.

The inability of the WHO to say where and how the virus began spreading has fueled tensions among its members, particularly between China, where COVID-19 cases were first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and the United States. The WHO called for all governments to cooperate to accelerate studies into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and "to depoliticise the situation." It specified that a new advisory group called the International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens would support "the rapid undertaking" of further studies.