Reactions to the report of the WHO-China joint mission to investigate the traceability of the new coronavirus were surprising, as WHO Director-General Tandezai explicitly called for a new investigation into whether a laboratory in China leaked the virus that caused the infection. Thirteen countries, including the United States, expressed concern about the findings, while the European Union said the joint investigation “is a useful first step,” but that a deeper investigation must be conducted into the source of the new crown and how it was transmitted to people. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on the other hand, exposed the joint investigation as a double-cross between the WHO and Chinese authorities to deceive public opinion.
The conclusions of the joint traceability investigation by WHO and Chinese experts were released, but the controversy is far from being put to rest. The joint report concluded that animal-to-human transmission through intermediate hosts was the most likely scenario, arguing that the Wuhan lab virus leak was “extremely unlikely” and should be ruled out.
The 13 countries, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, expressed concern about the joint findings, accusing the international investigation of being significantly delayed by the Chinese side, while international experts did not have access to the original samples for study.
Speaking to the media in Geneva on Tuesday, WHO Director General Tan Desai called for a new investigation by experts on a virus lab leak in China that triggered the outbreak.
The Trump administration has been arguing that the virus leak at the Wuhan lab triggered the Wuhan Xinguan outbreak, which led to a worldwide pandemic. China, however, has been strident in denying that possibility.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said he was not convinced that a “lab leak is highly unlikely” after reading a copy of the report. He said he agreed that it was very plausible that the virus could have spread to humans in a naturally evolved way, but he did not see any reason in the report to rule out the possibility of a laboratory leak.
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently told CNN that although there is no tangible evidence, he believes the new coronavirus originated from the Wuhan virus house spill.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday accused the joint report of being a “masquerade” staged by the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party, which continues to cover up the truth. He accused Tandezai of deferring to Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and “hiding the truth about human-to-human transmission at the most critical Time. Pompeo went on to say that “the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research is the most likely source of the new coronavirus and that the WHO is complicit with Beijing.
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