WHO Director-General Tan Desai said Thursday that China must “cooperate better” in investigating the origins of the New Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, AFP said, after the first cases were found in Wuhan in December 2019. Tandse was speaking at a World Health Organization news conference in Geneva when he said, “We want to have better cooperation with so that we can then know what is really happening.” Tandse had previously stated that he urged China to cooperate in tracing the source. Tandse also said that “we should do such an investigation for the sake of the dead souls of the 4 million people who died in this new coronavirus pandemic.”
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that China must “better cooperate” in investigating the origins of the New Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, the first cases of which were found in Wuhan in December 2019, according to an AFP report from Geneva today.
According to Tandse, “The first issue is the sharing of raw data, which I said at the end of the first phase of the investigation must be addressed; the second issue is how much of a premature attempt to reduce the hypothetical practice of human transmission caused by laboratory leakage.”
AFP said Tandse was referring to the results of a joint investigation conducted in China earlier this year by a team of experts selected by Chinese scientists and the WHO, which found it highly unlikely that the new coronavirus escaped from the laboratory, favoring the theory of transmission from an animal host to humans through an as-yet-unidentified intermediate animal.
This theory of laboratory escape was initially dismissed by a large number of scientists in the early months of the new coronavirus pandemic, before the U.S. administration of then Donald Trump, then succeeded by his successor Joe Biden, gave more echo and credence to the challenge. President Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to investigate the issue thoroughly as a matter of priority.
But that argument has been rejected by Chinese authorities, AFP said.
According to Tandse, “Labs have accidents all the time, it’s very common. I’ve seen them, I’ve made mistakes myself.” Tandse is referring to his background as an immunologist in the lab.
According to Tandse, he explained, “So lab leaks can happen, and it’s only important to check what’s happening in our labs, and we need information, direct information about what’s going on in the labs.” Prior to the New Coronavirus pandemic, Tandse was referring to the fact that research teams on the ground in early 2021 did not have access to such data.
Tandse insisted: “I hope there will be better collaboration and we will continue discussions with China and member states.” According to WHO Director-General Tandse, it was stressed that the framework for the origin of the second phase of the investigation has already been decided.
Tandse said, “We should do such an investigation for the sake of the 4 million deaths of this new coronavirus pandemic.”
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