Chinese delegates said during a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting Tuesday that the origins of COVID-19 should now be investigated in other countries rather than in China, where the virus first originated.
Chinese and U.S. delegates clashed at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, an annual gathering of health officials from nearly 200 countries, over how to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing argued the investigation in China was complete while Washington called for a new round of research.
“Currently, [in] the WHO-convened origins tracing study, China’s part has been completed,” a Chinese delegate said during the video conference Tuesday. “China supports the scientists to conduct a global origin tracing cooperation. We call on all parties to adopt an open and transparent attitude to cooperate with the WHO in origins tracing.”
The U.S. and China took sharply opposed positions on how to trace Covid-19’s origins at a WHO gathering, with Washington calling for a new round of studies https://t.co/fdMWiFLrZj
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 25, 2021
A team of WHO scientists visited China earlier this year in an effort to further understand the pandemic’s origins. But WHO program manager Peter Ben Embarak told Science Magazine that “politics was always in the room” as they only reviewed research conducted by Chinese state scientists and weren’t given full access to data. (RELATED: WHO, Not US Scientists, Will Lead Further Investigation Into COVID-19 Origins, Psaki Says)
The WHO called for a second phase of research in March, but global health regulations prevent the WHO from sending international scientists into China without its government’s permission. Beijing has instead asked the WHO team to pursue whether COVID-19 began elsewhere before the first cases were confirmed in Wuhan in early Dec. 2019, according to the WSJ.
Chinese officials have faced scrutiny for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 on social media. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian suggested in a March 2020 tweet that the U.S. Army was responsible for bringing the virus into Wuhan.
China has also contested the theory that postulated that a lab accidentally leaked the virus, according to the WSJ.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, said the lab leak theory was certainly a possibility. (RELATED: Media Dismissed Lab Leak Theory Because Trump Talked About It, According To A Senior Washington Post Reporter)
U.S. officials called for a second round of studies at the World Health Assembly meeting on Tuesday, according to the WSJ. Health and Human Services Sec. Xavier Becerra told diplomats the research should “give international experts the independence to fully assess the origins of the virus.”
Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for the COVID-19 response, told reporters Tuesday that an in-depth investigation into the pandemic’s origins is “a critical priority for us.”
“We need to get to the bottom of this and we need a completely transparent process from China. We need the WHO to assist in that matter. We don’t feel like we have that now,” he said.
