Covid-19: China flatly rejects WHO’s plan to revisit Wuhan lab leak theory

China on Thursday categorically rejected the WHOrsquos plan for the second phase of coronavirus origintracing in Wuhan especially to probe the lab leak theory as it dismissed reports that some of the employees of the facility were infected with the deadly virus before it spread to the city and the worldChina will not follow the World Health Organisations suggested plan on the second phase of Covid19 origintracing Zeng Yixin the vice minister of the National Health Commission NHC told a media briefing hereThe work plan on the secondphase origins study proposed by the WHO contains language that does not respect science he saidChinarsquos broadside against the WHO and its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who previously won Beijingrsquos praise and support for praising President Xi Jinpingrsquos handling of the coronavirus came after he asked China to be transparent and provide raw dataldquoAsking actually China to be transparent open and cooperate especially on the information raw data that we asked for at the early days of the pandemic We owe it to the millions who suffered and the millions who died to know what happenedrdquo he had saidZeng said the plan has listed the hypothesis that China had violated lab regulations and leaked the virus as one of the major research objectives and he was very shocked after reading the proposal staterun China Daily reportedInstead the nextphase origin tracing should focus on various regions and countries he said reiterating Beijingrsquos oftrepeated claim that the coronavirus broke out in several places in the world and China was the first to report about it in December 2019 when it emerged in the central Chinese city of WuhanZeng said he was shocked by the WHOrsquos work plan as it has been compromised by political manipulation and disrespect of scientific factsHe said China had allowed the WHO experts to visit all places they wanted to go and meet all people they wanted to see early this year adding that the results of the WHOChina joint study are able to stand the test of timeWe hope the WHO can carefully consider the advice by Chinese scientists take investigating the origin of the Covid19 virus as a scientific question free from political interference and proactively and properly conduct sustained investigations into the origin of the virus in various countries across the world the vice minister saidZeng also dismissed reports that the three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology WIV from where the US alleges the virus may have been leaked fell sick shortly before the first documented cases of Covid19There was zero infection among staff and students at the WIV he saidChina has also refused to share the details about the hospital admissions saying it constitutes a breach of individual privacy and the raw data as asked by the WHO comes under the national security regulationsLiang Wannian team leader of the Chinese side of the joint expert team of the WHOconvened Global Study of Origins of SARSCoV2 said that the study on the origin of Covid19 should focus on animals and it should be carried out in countries and regions with bat distributionZeng also the deputy director of the NHC said at the briefing that the WIV has no manmade viruses and has never conducted gainoffunction researchThe US has been pushing for a probe into the possibility of coronavirus having leaked from the WIV since early 2020 Former US president Donald Trump who termed the coronavirus as ldquoWuhan virusrdquo had demanded a probe into the lab leak theoryTrumprsquos successor Joe Biden has asked the intelligence community to redouble its efforts to get to the bottom of the origins of the coronavirus after new reports raised questions whether it spread from the laboratory in WuhanThe probe into the origin of the pandemic was hampered by the lack of raw data especially on the first days of its spreadA joint WHOChina team had travelled to Wuhan and spent four weeks visiting various places including the WIV It said in its report in March that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal and the leak of the virus from the lab was an ldquoextremely unlikely pathwayrdquoBut WHO chief Tedros while receiving the report said ldquoas far as the WHO is concerned all hypotheses remain on the tablerdquoWhile rejecting the WHOrsquos second study on the origin China has mounted a massive campaign at home and abroad to avert any such move to facilitate international investigators to probe the Covid19 origin in WuhanChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told the media here on Tuesday that 55 countries have written to Tedros opposing the politicisation of the virus origin issueAt a WHO member states briefing on July 16 Russia Belarus Pakistan Sri Lanka Cambodia Iran Syria Burundi Zimbabwe Cameroon Cuba Venezuela Bolivia and many other countries spoke up for justice he saidldquoThey stressed that tracing the origins of the virus is a scientific matter and should not be politicised The joint WHOChina study report published by WHO should be upheldrdquo he saidSeparately he said five million Chinese citizens signed an open letter calling for a probe into the US bio lab at Fort Detrick Zhao said adding that the mystery of Fort Detrick remains unexplained and shrouded by suspicionsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever