China demands US let WHO investigate origin of Covid-19

At a press conference in Beijing on June 4, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the US should invite the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and explain about its biological laboratories around the world.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. Photo: Getty

"We hope that the US will adopt a cooperative and scientific attitude like China and invite WHO experts to the US to conduct research on tracing the origin of the virus," spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

Mr. Wang Wenbin said that there was a lot of information about Covid-19 being found in many locations around the world in the second half of 2019. At the same time, there were doubts surrounding the Fort Detrick laboratory and the true purpose of more than 200 US biological laboratories around the world.

“The US should explain this as soon as possible, contribute to the fight against the pandemic, and better respond to future public health emergencies,” Wang said.

China's statement came in response to a request from President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, for China to release the medical records of three sick Wuhan lab workers, which Fauci said could provide important clues to the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak.

China has proposed an investigation into the possibility that Covid-19 leaked from a US laboratory. Accordingly, Beijing has urged the WHO to investigate the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 originated from the US military laboratory Fort Detrick.

The origin of Covid-19 has become one of the most controversial questions of the pandemic. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused the SARS-CoV-2 virus of leaking from a Wuhan lab, a theory that has been largely rejected by the scientific community.

However, the lab leak theory has regained traction in recent weeks after a group of prominent scientists signed a letter arguing that the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic should be taken seriously.

On May 26, President Joe Biden directed US intelligence agencies to step up efforts to investigate the origin of Covid-19, to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a laboratory or was transmitted from animals to humans.

Earlier, the Wall Street Journal, citing US intelligence sources, reported that three experts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology had fallen ill and had to be hospitalized. This raised suspicions that these experts could also have contracted Covid-19. However, China denied the information, accusing the US of exaggerating conspiracy theories about the origin of the disease./.