I recently noted that a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report on the origins of the covid pandemic called for a more robust consideration of a possible lab leak, marking a sharp reversal of the U.N. health agency’s initial assessment of the pandemic’s start.
Chinese officials are incensed at the conclusion, and have deemed it a ‘political lie“.
Beijing on Friday rejected the theory that the novel coronavirus may have emerged from a laboratory accident, calling it a political attack after a World Health Organization report said that more study is needed into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called the lab leak theory “a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes,” during a press briefing.He also pushed back against charges that China attempted to cover up the initial outbreak of the virus and that it hasn’t been cooperative with investigators.China has “shared the most data and research results” of any country on the origin of the novel coronavirus, Zhao said. .
There is quite a bit of evidence and assessment that counters Zhao’s claim, including a damning Times of London article I reviewed in 2020.
Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak.
Zhao also pointed fingers at the U.S., again.
He also reiterated calls for an investigation into “highly suspicious laboratories such as Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina” in the United States where China has suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. was developing the coronavirus as a bioweapon.
A review of the past two years shows that Chinese officials have blamed Italy, India, as well as Fort Detrick as being the source of the coronavirus responsible for the COVID19 pandemic. Chinese also blamed Canada for its Omicron outbreaks.
Meanwhile, in China, Shangai was slowly returning to normal after zero-covid policy closures shuttered the city in the wake of an omicron outbreak. But now parts of the city are undergoing lockdown again.
Shanghai and Beijing went back on fresh COVID-19 alert on Thursday after parts of China’s largest economic hub imposed new lockdown restriction and the city announced a round of mass testing for millions of residents.The most populous district in the Chinese capital, meanwhile, announced the shutdown of entertainment venues, while news of the lockdown of Shanghai’s Minhang district, home to more than 2 million people, pulled down Chinese stocks.
Zhao is going to be surprised to learn that no amount of Chinese money will persuade large swaths of the world’s population, including many scientists, that China is not the source of SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes covid.
He and his cronies will also eventually have to accept that zero-covid is not achievable, especially after it appears there may have been genetic modifications to make it stickier in the human respiratory tract.
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