China Says US COVID Source Report Lacks Credibility

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SHANGHAI – A declassified US intelligence report saying it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a laboratory is unscientific and lacks credibility, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Sunday in a statement.

The updated US intelligence report, released on Saturday, said that a natural origin and a laboratory leak were plausible hypotheses to explain how SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, first infected. to humans, but that the truth may never be known.

In a reply on Sunday to the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang said that “a lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie,” adding that the US intelligence services “have a reputation for fraud and deception. “.

“Tracing the origins of the new coronavirus is a serious and complex issue that should and can only be investigated through the cooperation of global scientists,” he said.

China has consistently denied allegations that the virus leaked from a specialized laboratory in the city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 was first identified in late 2019.

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Wang also repeated China’s calls on the United States to open its own laboratory at Fort Detrick to international experts.

A joint study by China and the World Health Organization published this year all but ruled out the theory that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory, saying the most likely hypothesis was that it infected humans naturally, probably through of the wildlife trade.

Critics said the study did not investigate the Wuhan labs and did not examine the raw data needed to understand the early routes of transmission of the virus.

Last month, the WHO established a new Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of a Pandemic (SAGO) and asked China to provide the raw data to assist in any new research. China has refused, citing patient privacy rules.

In an open letter to WHO Director-General Tedros last week, a group of scientists critical of the organization said that while they welcomed new research on the origins of COVID-19, the proposed composition of the SAGO panel was lacking. of the necessary skills and impartiality.

Reference-torontosun.com

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