WHO Investigators Defend Wuhan Lab on COVID-19 Origins

A core member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team that researched COVID-19's origin in China in early 2021 defended a Wuhan lab's withdrawal of a viral sample database from public view, claiming that the Chinese Communist Party's blocking of an inquiry for a year was due to "anti-China political rhetoric."

WHO defends Wuhan lab about the COVID-19's origins

World Health Organization Team Works In Wuhan

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WUHAN, CHINA - JANUARY 30:（CHINA OUT) Members of a World Health Organization (WHO) delegation visit an exhibition on the city's fight against Coronavirus on January 30, 2021 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The WHO team has finished their mandatory quarantine and is now carrying out investigations into the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan.

Officials from both the Trump and Biden administrations claimed the Chinese government obstructed probes into the COVID-19's origins. The WHO-China report is expected to be published next week. According to The Washington Examiner via MSN, the virus has infected 2.63 million people worldwide. China is not open, as per both administrations, and the main data is still hidden. Based on the congressional reports, an outbreak became a pandemic due to China's manipulation and the WHO's incompetence.

During a Chatham House discussion Wednesday, Peter Daszak, the leader of the EcoHealth Alliance, which steered at least $600,000 in NIH funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research, called the lab's decision to take down a public database containing thousands of viral samples "absolutely reasonable." Peter claimed the lab did so because it was hacked.

The topic seemed to foreshadow the WHO's upcoming report, and Daszak tried to defend the Chinese government's year-long intransigence by citing supposed anti-China sloganeering without blaming China.

Daszak previously mocked the Biden administration for dismissing the WHO's preliminary findings and defended China to CCP-affiliated media. Biosecurity at the lab headed by "bat woman" Shi Zhengli was a source of worry for U.S. Embassy officials in China in 2018.

China will continue to work with WHO to seek COVID-19 origins

In response to a query about U.S. criticism that China was not open to exchanging details on early cases with a WHO investigation earlier this year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the country would continue cooperating with the WHO to trace the source of COVID-19. Li said at a media briefing at the end of China's annual session of parliament Thursday that China had acted in a fact-based manner and with a free, honest, and cooperative approach, as per Reuters via MSN.

COVID-19 origins could be known within the next few years

The WHO-led investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic's origins said the virus's roots would most likely be identified within the next few years, CNBC reported. Daszak said, "I'm sure we're going to find out pretty quickly." He added that "We will have real important evidence on where this comes from and how it originated over the next few years," he added.

Daszak believes that using collective science evidence should be possible to figure out how animals carrying the coronavirus infected the first people in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. He said that the wildlife trade was the possible cause for COVID-19's existence in China and that this theory was "strongly accepted" by both the WHO and Chinese scientists.