EU joins Biden in calling on the WHO to re-investigate the source of the pandemic

BarcelonaThe President of the United States, Joe Biden, has quickly found the complicity he was looking for on European soil. This Thursday, in the prelude to the G-7 summit that meets on Friday in the English city of Cornwall, the European Union has made explicit its support to the American administration to ask the World Health Organization (WHO) for a new investigation into the origin of covid-19. "The world has the right to know exactly what happened", said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, together with the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, who in turn called on China to give investigators access to all relevant information. This is further proof of the revival of transatlantic relations between Europe and the United States, which want to stand shoulder to shoulder against the Asian giant.

Biden has already ordered the US secret services to investigate whether the virus could have accidentally escaped from a laboratory of the Institute of Virology in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a question that had already been speculated about since the beginning of the pandemic, although without conclusive evidence. This Wednesday, the Bloomberg agency already anticipated that the draft declaration of the G-7 summit, formed by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, supported this research, but the European Union, which is attending as a guest, has also joined.

There is broad scientific consensus that it is very difficult to determine the origin of the virus with any certainty - the origin of the virus that causes AIDS, for example, has not yet been clarified - and it is most likely that covid-19 passed to humans through an animal host in a natural way, in what is known as a zoonosis. However, it has not been possible to identify which intermediate animal would have infected the first human(s). The field investigation by WHO experts in Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic, concluded that the laboratory accident hypothesis was "extremely improbable".

According to Bloomberg, which has had access to the draft that the leaders will discuss on Friday, the G-7 will also commit to producing 1,000 million extra doses of vaccines next year to accelerate global immunization, a figure insufficient to achieve the necessary protection but that would be a boost to vaccination in countries with less capacity.

The final statement will be released on Sunday after three days of deliberations at the first face to face meeting of these leaders since the start of the pandemic. At the last meeting last year, held telematically under the chairmanship of France, there was no final statement because Donald Trump refused to sign it.

Apart from the coronavirus, China will also be criticized for human rights violations of the Muslim Uighur minority. The meeting will also address commitments on reducing polluting vehicles and funding in the fight against the climate emergency, as well as on economic recovery. A jab at Russia over cyber-attacks is also expected.