US asks for more data from China

WASHINGTON/SHANGHAI: The White House on Saturday called on China to make available data from the earliest days of the Covid-19 outbreak, saying it has “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 report were communicated.

National security advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement came days after a WHO team returned from Wuhan, China, the first epicentre of the pandemic, and suggested the virus might have originated with frozen seafood products, not from a Chinese lab as some have suggested.

Sullivan expressed “deep respect” for the WHO - which the US is rejoining after the Trump administration quit it to protest its virus response - but said protecting its credibility is “a paramount priority.”

“It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government,” Sullivan said.

“To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak.”

A member of the WHO team said China had refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.

The team had requested raw patient data on the 174 cases of Covid-19 that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert.

Meanwhile, the University of Oxford said it will begin testing the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with AstraZeneca Plc on children.