(Dan Tri) – China today responded to White House accusations that Beijing did not provide World Health Organization (WHO) investigators with some information about the pandemic outbreak.
Wuhan seafood market, where the first Covid-19 cases were discovered (Photo: AP)
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said on February 14 that the US stopped making financial contributions and withdrew from the WHO last year and only rejoined under the new administration.
China added that although it welcomes new US President Joe Biden’s decision to reverse the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from WHO, Beijing hopes Washington will `adhere to the highest standards, including
The above comments came after White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan issued a statement on February 12 saying Washington had `serious concerns` about the initial findings of the long-running Covid-19 investigation.
Mr. Sullivan said the US has reversed its decision to withdraw from WHO, but China needs to provide data from the first days of the outbreak and should participate in a `transparent and robust process to prevent and
`We have serious concerns about the way in which the initial findings of the Covid-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them,` Mr Sullivan said.
Big questions remain unanswered
The WHO’s international investigation team consisting of scientists from 10 countries last week left Wuhan after about a month of working here.
In comments while in China, members of the investigation said they had made some new discoveries about the origins of the pandemic, but big questions remained unanswered.
But critics say there are limitations to the WHO investigation, which comes just over a year after the first outbreaks were confirmed.
Members of the investigation team, including Australian infectious disease expert Dominic Dwyer and Danish scientist Thea Koelsen Fischer, said they were not allowed access to original and private data about the cases.
Australia’s ABC station reported that the international team of experts could not test wastewater samples in Wuhan before December 2019 – when the first cases of a mysterious virus were announced – because these samples were contaminated.
Expert Fischer also said that there is a `good relationship` between international and Chinese experts, and that their comments were `deliberately distorted to cast a shadow on important scientific research`.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price announced last week that the US would not accept the results of the WHO investigation team without first independently verifying these results, and that a full report and
According to AP, the investigation by the WHO expert group is very politically sensitive for Beijing, because of fears of being blamed for accusations of missteps in its early response to the outbreak.
An AP investigation found that the Chinese government has restricted research on the pandemic and asked scientists not to speak to the press.
And the South China Morning Post newspaper said that the origin of Covid-19 has become a political ball, when Chinese Foreign Ministry officials raised conspiracy theories that the virus could first spread from
