Virus origin probe ends, politics over it continues
Member of WHO’s probe team in China cautions against relying on US intel
BEIJING/LONDON: China called on the US on Wednesday to invite the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak there, as sparring over the pandemic continued after the WHO wrapped up its field work in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Hours after the WHO team revealed preliminary findings at a Wuhan news conference on Tuesday, Washington said it wants to scrutinise data used by the team, which concluded that the coronavirus causing Covid-19 did not originate in a laboratory in Wuhan, and that bats remain a likely source.
“We wish that the US side can, like China, uphold an open and transparent attitude, and be able to invite WHO experts to the US to conduct origin tracing research and inspection,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
The origins of the pandemic, which first emerged in Wuhan in 2019, are highly politicised, with China claiming that the virus has roots outside its borders.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that the Biden administration had not been involved in the “planning and implementation” of the WHO investigation and wants to take an independent review of its findings and underlying data.
Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team, waded directly into the geopolitics surrounding the pandemic origin story.
Biden “has to look tough on China”, he said in a tweet. “Please don’t rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects.”
Peter Ben Embarek, who heads the WHO-led team that spent four weeks in China, said the investigation has not dramatically changed its picture of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, two new Covid-19 variants, one of which has been classified as a “concern”, have been identified in England with similarities to the South African and Brazilian variants, a government advisory scientific committee said on Tuesday. Both are being probed. One of the new variants, first identified in Bristol, has been designated a “Variant of Concern”.