Beijing today said the WHO has found no evidence coronavirus was man-made, fending off accusations that it was created in a Chinese lab. ...
Beijing today said the WHO has found no evidence coronavirus was man-made, fending off accusations that it was created in a Chinese lab.
President Donald Trump said yesterday his government was 'doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation,' while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese 'need to come clean' on what they know.
But China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told Thursday's daily briefing that WHO officials 'have said multiple times there is no evidence the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory.'
It comes after scrutiny on Wuhan's Institute of Virology - first reported on by the MailOnline in January - came to head this week after The Washington Post published leaked State Department cables warning of the lab's safety standards in 2015.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Chinese President Xi jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in January. By the time of this meeting the WHO was already parroting erroneous information about the virus fed to it by Beijing
President Donald Trump speaking at the White House on Wednesday. He halted $500 million in funding for the WHO this week, saying the UN agency had 'failed in its basic duty'
Trump halted $500 million of funding to the WHO this week and slammed the body that had 'failed in its basic duty' in its response to coronavirus.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he 'regretted' the president's decision and told a press conference yesterday 'this is a time for all of us to be united in our common struggle.'
Critics of the UN health agency point to its uncritical parroting of Chinese government data, early claims that the disease was not spreading person-to-person, and praise for the country's leaders as evidence that it was not fulfilling its role
It comes as the number of people infected by COVID-19 worldwide soared to more than two million on Thursday, with more than 139,000 deaths.
The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory not as a bioweapon, but as part of China's effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.
Researchers work in a lab of Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei province, China in February 2017. Reports have suggested lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby 'wet' market, where the virus began to spread
This report and others have suggested the Wuhan lab where virology experiments take place and lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby 'wet' market, where the virus began to spread.
At a White House news conference Trump was asked about the reports of the virus escaping from the Wuhan lab, and he said he was aware of them.
'We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened,' he said.
Asked if he had raised the subject in his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: 'I don't want to discuss what I talked to him about the laboratory, I just don't want to discuss, it's inappropriate right now.'
Trump has sought to stress strong U.S. ties with China during the pandemic as the United States has relied on China for personal protection equipment desperately needed by American medical workers.
As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumours that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.
Pompeo, in a Fox News Channel interview after Trump's news conference, said 'we know this virus originated in Wuhan, China,' and that the Institute of Virology is only a handful of miles away from the wet market.
'The Chinese government needs to come clean,' Mike Pompeo told Fox News this week (pictured at a White House press briefing earlier this month)
'We really need the Chinese government to open up' and help explain 'exactly how this virus spread,' said Pompeo.
'The Chinese government needs to come clean,' he said.
The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the virus' official name, originated in bats.
Trump and other officials have expressed deep skepticism of China's officially declared death toll from the virus of around 3,000 people, when the United States has a death toll of more than 20,000 and rising.
He returned to the subject on Wednesday, saying the United States has more cases 'because we do more reporting.'
'Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?' he said.
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