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WASHINGTON: The United States distanced itself on Tuesday (February 9) from a theory propagated by former President Donald Trump that COVID-19 came from a Chinese laboratory and expressed support for the WHO researchers.
A World Health Organization mission to China said on Tuesday it had been unable to find the source behind the disease that has killed more than 2.3 million people, but said the laboratory’s hypothesis was “extremely unlikely.” .
The State Department, whose chief under Trump, Mike Pompeo, was a leading proponent of the laboratory theory, said it was awaiting full findings from the WHO.
“I think instead of rushing to conclusions that may be motivated by anything other than science, we want to see where that data is taking us, where that science is taking us, and our conclusions will be based on that,” he said. State Department spokesman Ned Price reporters.
“We clearly support this investigation,” he said.
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Pompeo was a sworn enemy of Beijing and led the charge by blaming China’s communist leaders for COVID-19 at a time when Trump faced strong criticism for his handling of the pandemic at home.
Pompeo pointed to China’s early efforts to hide cases and did not completely rule out that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was deliberately released.
In findings published five days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Pompeo State Department said the United States was aware that prior to the massive outbreak, several researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill with “symptoms consistent with both COVID- 19 as common seasonal diseases “.
Price said the Jan. 15 newsletter was “very clear that it was not conclusive, it did not believe one theory over another.”
Price, however, shared criticism that China was hiding information.
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“I think clearly the Chinese, at least until now, had not offered the necessary transparency that we need and, equally important, the international community needs, so that we can prevent these types of pandemics from happening again,” Price said.
When asked if China had fully cooperated with the WHO team, he said: “I think the jury is still out.”
Trump accused the WHO of being in debt to China and ordered the withdrawal of the United States from the UN body, an action immediately reversed by Biden.
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