Beijing: China Questions Coronavirus Origin To Wuhan before WHO Probe. Battling global adversity over the coronavirus and bracing for a WHO inquiry over its origin, China on Friday claimed that simply because COVID-19 cases were first reported in Wuhan doesn’t mean the contagion originated from the central Chinese city.
Various Chinese media are carrying reports in recent days that variety of imported food products were from different countries, including a consignment of fish from India, were found to possess traces of the COVID-19 alleging that the virus may have entered China through foreign routes.
Asked whether that’s China’s official view too, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here that “even though China was the primary to report coronavirus but doesn’t necessarily mean China is where the virus originated”.
“So we believe the origin process may be a complex scientific issue which needs joint efforts on COVID-19 cooperation from the scientific community worldwide. Only by doing so we will guard against future risks because origin tracing is an evolving and sustained process that involves many countries and regions,” he said.
His response came because the World Health Organization (WHO) team to research the origin of the virus is thanks to arrive in China, albeit Beijing is yet to offer a timeline.
There is also a way of relief here that US President Donald Trump who launched a tirade against China over COVID-19 terming it as “China virus” is on his answer. Trump also denounced the WHO alleging that it’s virtually controlled by China.
Besides halting funding for the WHO, the Trump administration has formally notified the UN of its decision to withdraw the US from the worldwide health body but US President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin it.
Since the coronavirus cases emerged in Wuhan in December last year before turning into a worldwide pandemic with the worldwide death count crossover 1.4 million.
China besides denying the US allegations that the virus emerged from a secretive bio-lab in Wuhan also refuted allegations that it emanated from a wet market within the city from bats or pangolins before infecting humans. The market has been sealed ever since.
In May, the planet Health Assembly (WHA), the administration of the 194-member states of the WHO, approved a resolution to line up an independent inquiry to conduct an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the international response also as that of WHO.
It also asked the WHO to research the “source of the virus and therefore the route of introduction to the human population”.
China, which has backed the inquiry with a rider that it should commence after the coronavirus was brought in check, said it’s preparing to receive the WHO experts’ team.
WHO emergency expert Dr Mike Ryan told the media early in the week that his organization has had assurances from China that a world excursion to research the origins of the new coronavirus are going to be arranged as soon as possible.
“We fully expect that we’ll have a team on the bottom,” Ryan was quoted as saying by the state-run CGTN on November 25.
Ryan said the Wuhan market, where the virus is reported to possess originated, is “likely to possess been some extent of amplification” of virus transmission, but whether that was by human, animal or environmental spread isn’t yet known, the report quoted him saying.
He said that there had been human cases that preceded that event, consistent with the CGTN report.