Covid-19: A hesitant first step toward solving a global mystery

THE first step was taken this past weekend toward investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) which, by July 12, had infected almost 13 million people around the globe with the loss of more than half a million lives.

But, while the two-person team from the World Health Organization (WHO) arrived in China on Friday, by Monday morning there had been no announcement of any meetings with Chinese officials to discuss a larger WHO mission and its scope of investigation. Thus, it remained unclear what China’s attitude is toward this attempt by the WHO to determine the animal origins of the virus, which is believed to have come from bats.