A joint study by China and the World Health Organization on New Crown disease does not provide credible answers on how the pandemic began and requires more rigorous investigation — with or without Beijing’s involvement, an international group of scientists and researchers said Wednesday (April 7).
The joint study, released last week, said the most likely route of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes New Crown disease involves bats and other wildlife in China and Southeast Asia. The report virtually rules out the possibility that the virus was leaked from a laboratory.
In an open letter, 24 researchers from Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan said the research was influenced by politics.
“Their starting point was to get us to make as many compromises as possible to get some minimal cooperation from China,” said Jamie Metzl, the letter’s author and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank.
The letter said the study’s conclusions were based on unpublished Chinese research, and that key records and biological samples “remain unavailable.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus said last week that China had not provided some data.
Liang Wannian, a senior expert on Newcastle pneumonia in China, denied the claim and appeared to rule out the possibility of further joint investigations in China. He said the focus should be shifted to other countries.
Metzl said the world may have to “go back to scenario B” and investigate “in the most systematic way possible” without China’s involvement.
China has denied allegations that the new coronavirus was leaked from a research laboratory in Wuhan. Wuhan is the latest place to confirm an outbreak of the new coronavirus.
A joint study by China and the World Health Organization said the lab leak was “highly unlikely” and said there was “no record” of any lab keeping the virus associated with the new coronavirus. Tandse said more research is needed to “draw stronger conclusions.
Metzl said China should disclose information that would disprove the hypothesis that the virus was leaked from a laboratory.
“China has virus databases …… that have laboratory records of work being done,” he said, “and there are all kinds of scientists doing that work, but we don’t have access to any of those resources or any of those people any of those people.”
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