US ‘DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED’ AS CHINA REJECTED WHO PLAN TO STUDY COVID-19 ORIGINS

Thu 22 July 2021:

Despite China’s decision to reject the WHO study into the origins of the new coronavirus, White House secretary Jen Psaki indicated on Thursday that the Biden administration continues to support phase two of the WHO investigation.

A top Chinese health official said Thursday that China cannot accept the World Health Organization’s (WHO)plan for the second phase of an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

“The US supports the WHO plan for phase two, which commits to ensuring these studies are scientific, transparent, expert-led, and free from interference. We have certainly seen the PRC’s [China’s] comments, again, rejecting phase two of the WHO study. We are deeply disappointed. Their position is irresponsible, and frankly, dangerous,” Psaki said during a press conference.

Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission, said he was “rather taken aback” by the call for a further into the pandemic’s origins and, specifically, the theory that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab.

He dismissed the lab leak theory as a rumor that runs counter to common sense and science.

“It is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan,” he said at a news conference called to address the COVID-19 origins issue.

The search for the virus’s origins has turned into a diplomatic issue that has strained China’s ties with the United States and many of its allies.

According to the United States and others, China has been secretive about what transpired in the early days of the pandemic.

China accuses critics of politicizing a matter that should be left to science to resolve.

Last week, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recognized that it was too soon to rule out a link between the pandemic and a leak from a Chinese government facility in Wuhan, where the disease was first found in late 2019.

Tedros expressed his expectation for improved collaboration and data availability from China, noting that

obtaining raw data had been a barrier for the international expert team that visited to China earlier this year to study the outbreak’s etiology.

Zeng said the Wuhan lab has no virus that can directly infect humans.

He noted that a WHO-coordinated team of international experts who visited the lab earlier this year concluded that a lab leak was highly unlikely

China has largely ended local transmission of the virus through lockdowns, masking requirements and the distribution of more than 1 billion doses of vaccine.

Just 12 new local cases were reported on Thursday, and China’s death toll from the virus remains unchanged at 4,636.

———————————————————————————————————————-

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent