China Rejects WHO Plan to Re-investigate Origins of COVID-19

A senior health official said that China has rejected the World Health Organization’s plan to conduct the second stage of investigation into the origin of the Coronavirus, which includes the hypothesis that it may have leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

The World Health Organization this month proposed conducting a second phase of studies on the origins of the Coronavirus in China, including audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan, and called on the authorities to be transparent.

“We will not accept this asset tracing scheme because in some ways it flouts logic and defies science,” Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the National Health Commission, told reporters.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization said earlier this month that investigations into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in China were hampered by a lack of preliminary data on the beginnings of the virus’s spread there.

The Chinese official reiterated his country’s position that some data could not be fully provided due to privacy concerns. He added that China opposes the politicization of the issue. The origin of the virus is still disputed among experts.

The first known cases appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, and it is believed that the virus was transmitted to humans from animals sold for food in the city’s market.