Coronavirus live: Germany should lift all Covid curbs by September, says minister; Indonesia flies in oxygen
German minister says Covid restrictions no longer justified once everyone is offered a vaccine; Indonesia seeks oxygen supplies from neighbouring countries as Covid situation worsens
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Under intense criticism over a statement that described the possibility of Covid-19 originating from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab as a conspiracy theory, without disclosing that a key author’s non-profit steered US funding to the lab, the Lancet has published a new letter supporting calls for further study of the pandemic’s roots.
In February 2020, a group of prominent scientists including Peter Daszak – whose organisation the EcoHealth Alliance funnelled $3.4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to the WIV to study bat coronaviruses between 2014 and 2019 – said “we stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”
Authors of a letter, published in February, 2020, in support of professional colleagues in China combatting #COVID19, reaffirm their stance and call for solidarity and rigorous scientific data to determine how #SARS-CoV-2 reached humans. Read t.co/5337YhuFCc. pic.twitter.com/068LcU16Gr
Related: In hunt for Covid’s origin, new studies point away from lab leak theory
The US has today sent Vietnam two million doses of Covid-19 vaccines as part of 80 million doses that president Joe Biden has pledged to allocate worldwide, the White House said.
The Moderna vaccine shipment should arrive in Vietnam this weekend, a White House official told AFP. “This is just the beginning of doses being shipped to southeast Asia.”
Read the original article at The Guardian