Beijing/Geneva/Washington D.C.: China today refuted a top World Health Organization (WHO) functionary’s remark and claimed there was no “contradiction, whatsoever” in its call for an investigation into Fort Detrick regarding the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, while responding to a question in Geneva had said the other day that all hypotheses regarding the origins of COVID-19 were still on the table, adding that China’s call for an investigation into Fort Detrick was a “contradiction”.
Beijing has fiercely pushed back against the Wuhan lab-leak theory, and China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told journalists today that China’s call is “reasonable and justified”.
Wenbin said on the issue of origins study, Chinese and WHO experts had reached the conclusion that a lab leak from Wuhan was extremely unlikely. He asserted that scientists across the world, including in the US, overwhelmingly believed that there was no evidence supporting a lab leak theory.
“It is the US that refuses to subscribe to this scientific conclusion and asserts that the virus was leaked from a Wuhan lab. Given that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has received two visits from WHO experts already and that the Fort Detrick base and the University of North Carolina (UNC) boast a long history of coronavirus research as well as poor safety records, if the US side insists on the lab leak hypothesis, then it’s incumbent on the US to open up Fort Detrick for international investigation,” he said.
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Launching a scathing attack on the WHO Secretariat, he said, in the same vein, if the WHO Secretariat insists that the possibility of a lab leak cannot be ruled out, then it’s incumbent on the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick. “Regrettably, we still haven’t heard about any plan in this direction by the Secretariat. The Chinese side has submitted to the WHO Secretariat a joint letter signed by 25 million Chinese netizens calling for a probe into Fort Detrick, but has received no response yet,” he said.
By calling for an investigation into Fort Detrick and the UNC, China hopes to show the world with facts whether the lab leak theory claimed by the US is tenable and credible. “With this call, we also hope to rid global origins study of the disruption posed by US politicisation so as to create enabling conditions for science-based research. Should the US refuse to cooperate, it would only further expose its true intention of politicizing origins study,” he said.
Responding to an investigation report on the WIV by Michael McCaul, Lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which cited extraordinarily high budget figures to suggest that something “unusual” was happening at the WIV, Wenbin supported a claim by Chinese media that the report exaggerated the expenses for a new ventilation system by 1,000 times. Besides, it also exaggerated tenfold or a hundredfold six other WIV budget figures. “I’ve noted relevant reports. This is further evidence that the so-called lab leak allegation by the US is not credible at all. It is based on nothing but false and erroneous information and data. This also shows again that origins study should not be politicized. It is a matter of science that should be studied by scientists, not manipulated by politicians or intelligence services,” he said.
He stated that the origins study was a scientific issue that required the cooperation of global scientists. “This is the consensus of the overwhelming majority of countries and the science community. The US moves of relying on its intelligence apparatus instead of scientists to trace the origins of COVID-19 will only undermine science-based origins study and hinder the global effort of finding the source of the virus,” he said. He asked: “Why is the US doing so although this is not the way the relevant work should be conducted? What is the US true intention of drawing on the intelligence community?” According to him, these questions were “worth pondering”.
Earlier in Washington D.C. last night (IST), White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had confirmed that the US President Joe Biden had not just received the 90-day origins report, but had also received a briefing on the report on August 24, 2021. However she said since it was a classified briefing, “so, of course, that’s not information we would provide publicly”. She, however, clarified that because of the prioritisation given to the report and the importance of this information for the public, the intelligence community had been simultaneously working on an unclassified version of summary — “a summary version to provide publicly”.
– global bihari bureau
