Britain’s Raab: China must address origins of the virus

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says China will have some “hard questions” to answer about how the coronavirus pandemic started.

The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. Raab says the world will need to find out what happened in China in the early days of the pandemic.

Raab is filling in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is convalescing after a weeklong hospita sltay to be treated for COVID-19. The foreign secretary says there will have to be a “deep dive” review of the crisis, including how the outbreak came about.

He says the review of all aspects of the pandemic, including its origins, will have to be based on the science and conducted in a “balanced way,” and adds that there “is no doubt we can’t have business as usual after this crisis.”

Raab does credit cooperation from Beijing in relation to bringing home stranded Britons in Wuhan and in supplying equipment to deal with the pandemic.

— AP