China has declined a plan by the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the origin of Covid-19 in a second phase investigation in China. Since China was the country in which the virus emerged, there have been allegations doing rounds suggesting the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory however this rumor was dismissed by the first WHO study in China on the same.
A top health official in China, Zeng Yixin, vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), has disclosed that earlier in the month, WHO proposed a second phase of studies into the origin of COVID-19 in China including markets and laboratories investigations.
“We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it, in some aspects, disregards common sense and defies science,” said Zeng.
Zeng says he was astonished after reading WHO’s plan for the first time as the organization has listed the hypothesis that the COVID-19 virus could have leaked out due to violations of laboratory protocols in China.
Zeng made it clear that some set of data could not be completely shared during the first study due to security concerns further urging the WHO to stop allowing political interference into the matter.
“We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference,” added Zeng.
