WHO urges countries to disclose information they have on COVID origins

The WHO on Friday urged all countries around the world to disclose the information they possess about the origins of the coronavirus. This comes a week after FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed that the bureau holds the Chinese government responsible for spreading the pandemic that paralyzed the planet in 2020. "If any country has information about the origins of the pandemic, it’s essential for that information to be shared with WHO and the international scientific community," said a WHO statement.

In statements reported by The Guardian, WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the intention is not to blame anyone, rather to find out as much as possible about the pandemic in order to prevent another one from happening: "We want to advance our understanding of how this pandemic started so we can prevent, prepare for and respond to future epidemics and pandemics," he said.

He also stated that, unlike Christopher Wray, the WHO does not hold China responsible for spreading the pandemic, but it is encouraging them to provide any information they had about the virus. Until then, they will keep all theories open about the origins of COVID:

WHO's top coronavirus researcher frustrated with United States

While Tedros Adhanom called for collaboration from all countries, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on the coronavirus, expressed frustration on Twitter at the feedback the organization received from the United States:

On Friday, she teamed up with with Dr. Tedros to ask the international community to share all the information they have on the origin of COVID-19: "We don't completely have the answers to how this pandemic began and it remains absolutely critical that we continue to focus on this."

In addition, she said that the most urgent task was to study the other variants of the coronavirus, especially those circulating among animals, to find out how an animal could have transmitted the virus to a human being: