5 Years On, China and WHO Continue to Bicker Over Data on Covid Origins

Five years ago, the world was first alerted about the emergence of a novel coronavirus in the Wuhan city of China, which quickly escalated from a "viral pneumonia" to a global pandemic, upending the planet.

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Beijing insisted on Tuesday that it had shared all information on Covid-19 "without holding anything back", after the global health body implored China to offer more data and access to understand the disease's beginnings. The WHO published a statement on Monday saying it was a "moral and scientific imperative" for China to share more information. In response, China defended its transparency, saying it had made the "largest contribution to global origin tracing research".

"Five years ago... China immediately shared epidemic information and viral gene sequence with the WHO and the international community," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. "Without holding anything back, we shared our prevention, control and treatment experience," she told reporters at a regular press briefing.

In the last five years, over 700 million Covid cases and 7 million deaths have been recorded worldwide. In India, the total number of cases stand at 45 million and the deaths at 533,570.