Mick Hartley

A predictable response from the Chinese:

China has dismissed World Health Organisation plans to revisit the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a laboratory.

The WHO wants to begin a second phase study on how the virus broke out, including audits of laboratories and markets in the city of Wuhan.

Beijing vehemently denies that the virus may have escaped, accidentally or otherwise, from a high-security biological lab in Wuhan, where the first infections were reported in December 2019.

A joint investigation by Chinese scientists and experts picked by the WHO concluded this year that this was “extremely unlikely” but a growing number of scientists believe that it is too early to rule it out. The United States has urged China to release information that might provide answers.

Zeng Yixin, a vice-director of China’s National Health Commission, called the WHO plans “disrespectful of common sense” and “contrary to science”. He said: “None of the staff and students at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have contracted the coronavirus. The institute has not carried out any “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses. There is no so-called man-made virus. How could there be any viral leak caused by violations of lab protocols?”

But according to a number of accounts the lab was indeed carrying out gain-of-function research. The WHO needs to toughen up and demand a full enquiry.