An announced investigation by the US secret service into the origin of the corona virus is causing displeasure in Beijing: A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry firmly denied the need for such an investigation on Thursday.
The background to the investigation ordered by US President Joe Biden (78) is the question of whether a laboratory accident in the Chinese city of Wuhan may have led to the global corona pandemic with more than 3.4 million deaths.
Biden told Americans on Wednesday that he had directed U.S. intelligence to report within 90 days on whether the virus did not originate from animals and spread to humans, but could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory. There is currently disagreement among the US secret services as to which scenario is more likely.
Angry Beijing
Soon after the pandemic began, there was speculation that the coronavirus might have escaped in an accident from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, where coronavirus research is being carried out. The Chinese government has always vigorously denied this.
The “motives and goals” of the US government are “clear,” said the Chinese ministry spokesman. “The world has long known the dark history of US intelligence,” he said, referring to earlier CIA misinformation. The then US government had cited alleged evidence of weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the Iraq invasion in 2003, which later turned out to be false.
The revival of the laboratory accident theory “is disrespectful to science and also a disruption in the global fight against the pandemic,” added the Chinese spokesman.
Facebook no longer censors theory
In view of the latest developments, the online network Facebook announced that it would no longer delete claims that the virus was caused by humans from the platform. The online service will continue to work with health professionals and “update our guidelines regularly when new facts and developments emerge.” Facebook is also taking action against false claims about the coronavirus as part of its campaign against disinformation.
A team of international experts on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the laboratory theory as “extremely unlikely” in March. Rather, it is “likely to very likely” that the Sars-CoV-2 virus has passed from a bat to humans via an intermediate host animal.
But doubts quickly arose about the report. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (56) called for further testing of the hypothesis of a laboratory accident in Wuhan. Numerous states expressed concern that the experts had been denied access to data during their investigation in China.
China hid key details
A report in the “Wall Street Journal” had recently given new impetus to suspicions about an accident at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. The newspaper reported on Sunday, citing a US intelligence report, that in November 2019 three employees of the institute were so seriously ill that they had to be treated in hospital. The first corona infections became known in Wuhan at the end of 2019.
China vehemently rejects the theory of a laboratory accident and accuses the US government of trying to distract attention from the high corona death rates in its own country through alleged conspiracy theories and politicization of the pandemic. (AFP / kes)