Should not be politicised: Beijing rejects US report on 'Covid lab leak'

China on Monday rejected a new US report that claims the Covid19 virus may have leaked from a bio laboratory in Wuhan saying the originstracing of the pandemic is about science and should not be politicisedForeign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the international experts have considered the theory that the pandemic might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory as extremely unlikelyShe said it is a sciencebased authoritative conclusion reached by the experts of the WHOChina joint mission after field trips to the lab in Wuhan and indepth communication with researchersMaos remarks came in response to the US Department of Energys USDE latest assessment that the coronavirus mostly likely leaked from a bio laboratory in Wuhan It was accurately recorded in the missions report and has received extensive recognition from the international community she saidThe originstracing of SARSCoV2 is about science and should not be politicised China has always supported and participated in global sciencebased originstracing Mao saidThe USDE has assessed in the intelligence report that it had low confidence that the Covid19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan CNN reported on SundayA low confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough or is too fragmented to make a more definitive analytic judgment or that there is not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion it saidThe Huanan market in central Chinas Wuhan city was the epicentre of the pandemic From its origin there the SARSCoV2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in late 2019 and then to the rest of the world killing nearly seven million peopleA WHO team of experts who visited Wuhan in 2021 amid the raging controversy over the lableak theory which China vehemently denied stated in its report that the leak from the Wuhan bio lab was the least likely hypothesisAlso read Covid infection could damage foetuses of pregnant women reveals studyBut WHO DirectorGeneral Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who received the report said the Wuhan lab leak allegation required further probe As far as the WHO is concerned all hypotheses remain on the table Ghebreyesus saidOver two years since Covid19 was first detected in Wuhan the question of how the virus first emerged remains a mystery It is suspected that the coronavirus may have escaped accidentally or otherwise from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where the virus was first recordedThe Wuhan Institute of Virology WIV has been studying coronaviruses in bats for over a decade The USDE assessment further adds to the divide in the US government over whether the Covid19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab leak or whether it emerged naturallyThe various intelligence agencies have been split on the matter for years In 2021 the intelligence community declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans naturally in the wild while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident the CNN report saidA USDE spokesperson in a statement to CNN said the Department of Energy continues to support the thorough careful and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID19 as the President directed The Department of Energys Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is one of the 18 government agencies that make up the intelligence community which is under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to commentThe controversial lableak theory first emerged early on in the pandemic and was promoted by thenUS President Donald Trump China has rejected the claim that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory calling it a smear and has suggested the coronavirus may have entered the country in food shipments from another countryGiven the massive human toll of the pandemic most scientists think understanding how and where the virus originated is crucial to prevent it from happening againThis 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