China wrong to block WHO

The Chinese government has rejected the proposal of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to audit laboratories in the Wuhan area where the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 was first identified. For the country, the proposal is “disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science”. The WHO proposal focused on violations of China's laboratory protocols and it was impossible for China to accept them, it says. China feels the WHO, and the world, can do with its own origins-tracing recommendations.

The WHO, on the other hand, has made it clear that it has no case that the virus that caused the pandemic escaped from a lab in China. However, “the theory has endured”, according to WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He wants China to be "be transparent, to be open and cooperate" about the early stages of the outbreak.

There have been reports that the Wuhan Virology Institute was in the know of the outbreak of viral pneumonia in a mine in 2012 and its scientists had collected samples. Some have pointed out that the laboratories in China did not follow the level of security which they ought to flow, suggesting that the virus escaped from a lab. In short, Dr Ghebreyesus is right: the theory has endured.

China is a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations and the WHO is its arm that is entrusted with the health of the global population. Pandemic Covid-19 is the biggest threat to human health in these times: official estimates say it has killed 41 lakh people and affected close to 20 crore. It is imperative that we have an unequivocal idea about the causes of it, so that we can plan for the future. It will be “disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science” if we don’t do it.