Chinese embassy in US says politicising COVID-19 origins hampers probe

GBNEWS24 DESK//

Politicising the origins of COVID-19 would hamper further investigations and undermine global efforts to curb the pandemic, China’s US embassy said after President Joe Biden ordered a review of intelligence about where the virus emerged.

The embassy in Washington said in a statement on its website on Wednesday evening “some political forces have been fixated on political manipulation and (the) blame game”, reports Reuters.

As the World Health Organisation (WHO) prepares to begin a second phase of studies into the origins of COVID-19, China has been under pressure to give investigators more access amid allegations that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory specialising in coronavirus research in the city of Wuhan.

China has repeatedly denied the lab was responsible, saying the United States and other countries were trying to distract from their own failures to contain the virus.

Biden said on Wednesday that U.S. intelligence agencies were divided about whether COVID-19 “emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident”.

Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said China’s lack of openness was a major factor behind the resurgence of the lab leak theory.

“There’s nothing really new there to prove the hypothesis,” he said. “In the investigation of the origins of the pandemic it is really important to have transparency in order to build trust in the investigation results.”

“A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY”

The Chinese embassy said it supports “a comprehensive study of all early cases of COVID-19 found worldwide and a thorough investigation into some secretive bases and biological laboratories all over the world.”

The Global Times tabloid, part of the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper group, said late on Wednesday that if the “lab leak theory” is to be further investigated, the United States should also allow investigators into its own facilities, including the lab at Fort Detrick.

“Very clearly they are trying to internationalise their way out of the jam they are in,” said Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, who has been campaigning for a new independent investigation.