China can not settle for the World Well being Group’s plan for the second section of a research into the origins of COVID-19, a senior Chinese language well being official mentioned Thursday.
Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Nationwide Well being Fee, mentioned he was shocked by the plan and particularly, the idea that the virus might need leaked from a Chinese language lab.
He dismissed the idea as a hearsay that runs counter to frequent sense and science.
“It’s unattainable for us to just accept such an origin-tracing plan,” he mentioned at a information convention known as to handle the COVID-19 origins challenge.
The seek for the origins of the virus has change into a diplomatic challenge that has worsened China’s relations with the U.S. and plenty of of its allies. The U.S. and others say that China has not been clear about what occurred within the early days of the pandemic. China accuses critics of politicizing a difficulty that must be left to scientists.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of WHO, acknowledged final week that it was untimely to rule out a possible hyperlink between the pandemic and a leak from a Chinese language authorities lab in Wuhan, town the place the illness was first detected in late 2019.
Zeng mentioned the Wuhan lab has no virus that may straight infect people. He famous {that a} WHO-coordinated group of worldwide specialists who visited the lab earlier this 12 months concluded {that a} lab leak was extremely unlikely.
Most specialists consider the virus most definitely jumped from animals to people. The extremely politicized debate centres on whether or not a lab leak is so unlikely that the idea must be dominated out as a chance, or if it deserves additional research.
