‘Get ready to face Covid-26 and Covid-32 if origins of Covid-19 are not traced’: US Experts

Xi Jinping-led Chinese government should cooperate with the world to trace the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to prevent future pandemics, said US health experts. Not having complete know-how about the origins of the pandemic puts the world at risk of future pandemics, according to the co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development Peter Hotez.

“There’s going to be Covid-26 and Covid-32 unless we fully understand the origins of Covid-19,” Hotez said on NBC’s ‘Meet the press.’

According to Scott Gottlieb, a commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Trump administration and now a board member of Pfizer Inc, there is more evidence to support the notion that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Gottlieb, speaking to CBS News, claimed that China hasn’t offered data to reject that theory, and that the search for indicators that the virus came from wildlife hasn’t given results.

Almost a year and half after the new pathogen was first detected spreading in a seafood market in Wuhan, China, the precise origins of the virus remain obscure. Scientists have hypothesized that it most likely spread from wild animals to humans. The idea that the virus may have accidentally escaped from a research lab, long promoted by some Republicans, has gotten renewed attention from the Biden administration.

In a surprise statement last Wednesday, even President Joe Biden called for a renewed investigation into the virus’s emergence. U.S. intelligence agencies had conflicting assessments of whether it was more likely the virus crossed the species barrier from a natural reservoir or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Biden said. He ordered the agencies to “redouble their efforts” and report to him again in 90 days.