The real issue about COVID-19 origins is how to prevent future pandemics based on international cooperation, instead of blaming or acquitting some countries, said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

"The question about origins is not about one government or another, much less a geopolitical issue or a matter of blaming China and exonerating the US," Sachs wrote in an opinion article published in Project Syndicate in late June.