Geneva, Switzerland: After assertions by the United States that the virus was probably leaked from a Chinese laboratory and which have prompted vehement denials from Beijing, the World Health Organization has encouraged all nations to share what they know about the origins of COVID-19.

This week, US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Mr. Christopher Wray stated to Fox News that the FBI believed the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin was “most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” a city in China that is home to a virus research lab and where the first COVID infections occurred in late 2019.

“Not so as to apportion blame but to advance our understanding of how this pandemic started, so we can prevent, prepare for and respond to future epidemics and pandemics,” the WHO chief stated.

Officials in China have strongly disputed the FBI’s assertion that their nation is the source of the pandemic, calling it a smear attempt against Beijing. Ms. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, claimed last week that Beijing had been open in its investigation into the virus’s origin. She argued that in order to find the virus’s origin, the US should look to its own biological facilities, which are dispersed over the world.

The WHO’s global COVID-19 trackers show that there had been more than 757 million virus infections and 6.85 million linked fatalities. The real death toll is much higher.

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