CNS The Soufan Group Morning Brief Sent out each weekday, The CNS Soufan Group Morning Brief offers a roundup of the most important current events stories related to national security.

The World Health Organization is reviving its stalled investigation into the origins of COVID-19 with a new team of about 20 scientists. The team—including specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and geneticists and animal-disease experts versed in how viruses spill over from nature—is being assembled with a mandate to find new evidence in China and elsewhere. The possibilities that the new team is charged with examining include whether the COVID-19 virus could have emerged from a lab, according to WHO officials.

See how much Covid-19 relief money health care providers in your state got STAT’s new analysis of HHS's Provider Relief Fund money reveals where it’s flowing and who has received the most so far. J. Emory Parker STAT

Congress set up a massive, $178 billion fund in 2020 meant to help mitigate the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on health care providers, known as the Provider Relief Fund.

Closest known relatives of virus behind COVID-19 found in Laos

Scientists have found three viruses in bats in Laos that are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses. Researchers say that parts of their genetic code bolster claims that the virus behind COVID-19 has a natural origin — but their discovery also raises fears that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people. ...