The head of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19 suggested the WHO would not continue investigating the hypothesis that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab, deeming it an “extremely unlikely” possibility.

China had long done its utmost to thwart investigations into the origins of the virus, which subsequently turned into the pandemic that has killed 2.32 million people around the world, and the Trump administration withdrew from the WHO in 2020, claiming that the United Nations agency was incompetent and influenced by China, although the Biden administration rejoined it.