Twenty-six scientists from several countries issued an open letter calling on the international community to establish a new body to conduct a new independent investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus. In addition, a conservative group in the United States released 301 pages of emails revealing that China and the World health Organization had worked together to conceal the outbreak.
The World Health Organization’s expert panel on virus tracing went to China in early February to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus, sparking much controversy as the international community repeatedly condemned the flawed investigation and criticized the Chinese government for limiting the investigation, lacking transparency and not releasing complete data.
Several scientists questioned the independence of the investigation
Twenty-six scientists from around the world, including experts in the fields of virology and microbiology, issued a joint open letter on March 4 calling for a new international investigation. The letter points out that half of the WHO expert panel that traveled to Wuhan in February was Chinese nationals in addition to experts from other countries, limiting the independence of the investigation, and that the panel relies on the Chinese government to share information and any report could involve political compromise.
One of the co-authors, Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King’s College London, has a long history of researching and regulating high-security facilities and high-risk biological experiments. She told the station that whether the virus was spilled from nature or leaked from a laboratory, both theories require thorough investigation and research, but the joint WHO-China team does not have a full mandate and lacks the independence to conduct a full and unrestricted investigation.
“We are not trying to undermine the WHO, but to emphasize that the joint WHO-China study is not an independent scientific investigation.” In his letter in response to the station, Lanzos emphasized that “it was highly politicized from the beginning to influence all aspects of the study, including the samples, hospital and laboratory records, who the international experts had access to in Wuhan, and even the results and reports that came out of the study.”
The open letter was published by U.S. media outlet The Wall Street Journal and co-signed by experts from Australia, New Zealand, France, the U.S. and others, with one of the organizers being Jamie Metzl, a member of the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He tweeted that this Time the panel of experts simply could not conduct an independent investigation, and that the Chinese government would not approve a full and honest report.
“We need to renegotiate the terms of reference between WHO and the Chinese government to allow for a truly substantive outbreak investigation, or urgently seek more authority from a full, unrestricted international tribunal investigation.” Metz tweeted.
Who politicized the investigation into the origin of the virus?
At a regular press conference on the 5th, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spilled out a four-point response, not only reiterating that the Chinese government is actively cooperating and not interfering, but also accusing some people of “politicizing the issue of traceability in disregard of scientific facts”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin: “The so-called ‘open letter from scientists’ you mentioned just now, whether they uphold a scientific and professional attitude to provide advice for the traceability research, or engage in ‘presumption of guilt’ and politicization, I think they know very well. They know it very well.”
Xia Ming, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, criticized the Chinese government for actually calling a thief a thief.
“The investigation (of the origin of the virus) itself is very scientific, and the Chinese government says you should not politicize it, but it happens to be the Chinese government that has highly politicized him and (linked) the investigation with our dignity, our national independence, national sovereignty (to it).” Xia Ming said.
WHO delays report release
In the face of international public opinion, the Wall Street Journal reported that the WHO New Crown Traceability Investigation Team plans to cancel the release of its interim report on the China mission. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said to the public on Feb. 12 that the WHO expert mission would release a brief interim report within a week after concluding the Wuhan investigation, and that a full version of the investigation report would be officially released within a few weeks. But Peter Ben Embarek, the Danish Food scientist who led the WHO expert team, said the team had cancelled the early release of the interim report and would instead release it together with the full final report.
Xia Ming believes that experts have revealed that China has not shared the original, complete data, and interviews with patients are restricted by Beijing, the source of the virus is still confusing to the outside world, but in terms of future Epidemic prevention, the investigation of the origin of the virus is indispensable.
301-page email: WHO says agreement must be reached with China first
The emails come after a conservative group, Judicial Watch, and the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained 301 pages of emails from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and revealed on March 1 that China and the WHO were suspected of working together to hide the outbreak.
The emails include correspondence between Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and H. Clifford Lane, deputy director, as well as letters between WHO and U.S. officials.
It mentions that WHO sent a briefing to NIH officials traveling to China on Feb. 13, 2020, and asked them to reach an agreement with China before sharing information. The email reads, “IMPORTANT: Please consider this a sensitive document and not to be used for public communication until communication is reached with China.”
It also included a letter from a Chinese Caixin Media reporter, Zeng Jia, who had written to Rehn on March 4, 2020, pointing out that the number of cases reported by the WHO in conjunction with China did not match the numbers reported by the Wuhan Public Health Commission.
In an interview with PBS on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Blinken said China has not been sufficiently cooperative and transparent, both at the beginning of the outbreak and today as the investigation to determine the source of the virus begins. Before that, the U.S. State Department said it would conduct an independent review of the WHO’s findings and underlying data.
Matt Pottinger, deputy national security adviser to former President Trump‘s administration, also said in a media interview in late February that China deliberately concealed the outbreak in its early stages and cut off control of the outbreak from the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), causing the virus to spread across the country. He also revealed that the information released by the Chinese government at the time about the virus was inconsistent with the information he himself had received from local doctors.
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