Politicization of origin tracing ill-willed

The permanent representatives of 44 countries to the United Nations Office in Geneva sent a joint letter to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus opposing the politicization of the efforts to trace the origin of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Four other countries sent letters of their own expressing the same stance.

Such letters should not be needed as it should be axiomatic that the origin-tracing of the outbreak is a matter of science.

But the United States continues to politicize the pandemic, it is clear that it will not be satisfied until China is declared as the place where the virus originated. It would be elated if its politically-motivated stubbornness can make the world believe that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

Its politicization of the scientific efforts to learn more about the outbreak is in fact a conspiracy to frame China as the culprit for the virus. But with its steadfast anti-science stance, the US is a hindrance to the global fight against the pandemic and the efforts to be better prepared for any future pandemic.

The fact that China was the first country to identify the outbreak and report it to the WHO and the first to publish the gene sequence of the virus as well as its plan for treatment of the disease and control of the spread of the virus is enough to verify the country has taken a responsible approach to the public health crisis from the very beginning. That is more than can be said of the US. There is enough evidence to show that the virus appeared much earlier in the US than it let on. Which looked at in the most favorable light possible, points to the fact that the US did a bad job in identifying the public health threat.

That the US has the largest number of accumulated cases speaks volumes about what a terrible job it has done in pooling its national efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

Just as the letter of the representatives of 48 countries to the WHO says, the purpose of the origin-tracing is to identify the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population, including the possible role of an intermediate host.

Yet, some politicians in the US, who consider the origin-tracing as an opportunity to stigmatize China, choose to turn a blind eye to the fact that the virus could likely originate elsewhere. They even refuse to accept origin-tracing studies in the US.

Even after scientists have concluded that the virus was not engineered in a lab, some politicians in the US still continue to push that conspiracy theory.

The global solidarity needed to fight against the pandemic will not be forged effectively until the US stops trying to use the pandemic as a means to tar China.