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The United States on Tuesday led several countries’ concern over a report backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the origin of covid-19, with accusations that Beijing did not give adequate access to investigators.
The coronavirus, first detected in humans in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, already leaves almost 2.8 million deaths worldwide and several countries in America and Europe face new waves of infections.
The United States – the country with the most deaths from the pandemic – and 13 of its allies reaffirmed their support for the WHO, but noted that the investigation “was significantly delayed and did not have full access to original data and samples.”
Signatories to the statement include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.
The Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, made a similar criticism during the official presentation of the report, saying that the international team of experts sent to China had had “difficulties” in “accessing the original data.”
Tedros, long accused of complacency towards Beijing, hardened his tone and urged further investigation, without ruling out the possibility that the new coronavirus has escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
China has always roundly rejected that hypothesis. And experts sent to Wuhan by the WHO earlier this year to investigate the origins of the pandemic almost ruled it out.
The report by those scientists and their Chinese counterparts, of which Agence France-Presse obtained a copy on Monday, considered “probable to highly probable” that covid-19 has jumped from bats to humans through an intermediary animal, in both judged the laboratory leak “extremely unlikely.”
Possible intermediary animals include the domestic cat, rabbit, mink, pangolin or polecat badger.
Beijing’s theory that the virus did not originate in China but was imported in frozen food was deemed “possible” but highly unlikely.
China asks not to politicize
Neither Tedros nor the US-led statement mentioned China directly, but Beijing responded to what it perceived as complaints from the WHO chief, noting that they had fully demonstrated “their openness, transparency and responsible attitude.”
“Politicizing this issue will only seriously hamper global cooperation in the study of origins, it will jeopardize cooperation against the pandemic and cost more lives, ”the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The European Union called the WHO report a “useful first step” but – without naming China – highlighted “the need to continue working”, urging “relevant authorities” to help.
Mike Pompeo, the former head of US diplomacy during the Donald Trump administration, He called the report “a sham” continuing the “disinformation campaign” by the Communist Party of China and the WHO.
The hypothesis that the virus could have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan was a favorite of the United States during the Trump administration.
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