BEIJING: Chinese health officials defended their search for the source of the COVID-19 virus and lashed out Saturday at the World Health Organization after its leader said Beijing should have shared genetic information earlier.
The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful,” said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing. He accused the WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicize COVID-19.”
The global health body’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said March 17 that newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan in central China, where the first cases were detected in late 2019, “should have been shared three years ago.”
“As a responsible country and as scientists, we have always actively shared research results with scientists from around the world,” Shen said at a news conference.
The origins of COVID-19 are still debated and the focus of bitter political dispute.
Many scientists believe it jumped from animals to humans at a market in Wuhan, but the city also is home to laboratories including China’s top facility for collecting viruses. That prompted suggestions COVID-19 might have leaked from one.
The ruling Communist Party has tried to deflect criticism of its handling of the outbreak by spreading uncertainty about its origins.
Officials have repeated anti-US conspiracy theories that the virus was created by Washington and smuggled into China. The government also says the virus might have entered China on mail or food shipments, though scientists abroad see no evidence to support that.
Chinese officials suppressed information about the Wuhan outbreak in 2019 and punished a doctor who warned others about the new disease. The ruling party reversed course in early 2020 and shut down access to major cities and most international travel to contain the disease.
The genetic material cited by the WHO’s Tedros was uploaded recently to a global database but collected in 2020 at a Wuhan market where wildlife was sold.
The samples show DNA from raccoon dogs mingled with the virus, scientists say. They say that adds evidence to the hypothesis COVID-19 came from animals, not a lab, but doesn’t resolve the question of where it started. They say the virus also might have spread to raccoon dogs from humans.
The information was removed by Chinese officials from the database after foreign scientists asked the CDC about it, but it had been copied by a French expert and shared with researchers outside China.
A CDC researcher, Zhou Lei, who worked in Wuhan, said Chinese scientists “shared all the data we had” and “adhered to principles of openness, objectivity and transparency.”
Shen said scientists investigated the possibility of a laboratory leak and “fully shared our research and data without any concealment or reservation.”
Shen said the source of COVID-19 had yet to be found, but he noted it took years to identify the AIDS virus and its origin still is unclear.
“Some forces and figures who instigate and participate in politicizing the traceability issue and attempting to smear China should not assume that the vision of the scientific community around the world will be blinded by their clumsy manipulation,” Shen said.
China health officials lash out at WHO, defend virus search
https://arab.news/vqdhs
China health officials lash out at WHO, defend virus search
- The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful," said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention
- He accused the WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others "politicize COVID-19”
Europeans push back at US over claim they face ‘civilizational erasure’
- “Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” Kallas told the conference
MUNICH: A top European Union official on Sunday rejected the notion that Europe faces “civilizational erasure,” pushing back at criticism of the continent by the Trump administration.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the Munich Security Conference a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a somewhat reassuring message to European allies. He struck a less aggressive tone than Vice President JD Vance did in lecturing them at the same gathering last year but maintained a firm tone on Washington’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its policy priorities.
Kallas alluded to criticism in the US national security strategy released in December, which asserted that economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.” It suggested that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birth rates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” Kallas told the conference. “In fact, people still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans,” she added, saying she was told when visiting Canada last year that many people there have an interest in joining the EU.
Kallas rejected what she called “European-bashing.”
“We are, you know, pushing humanity forward, trying to defend human rights and all this, which is actually bringing also prosperity for people. So that’s why it’s very hard for me to believe these accusations.”
In his conference speech, Rubio said that an end to the trans-Atlantic era “is neither our goal nor our wish,” adding that “our home may be in the Western hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.”
He made clear that the Trump administration is sticking to its guns on issues such as migration, trade and climate. And European officials who addressed the gathering made clear that they in turn will stand by their values, including their approach to free speech, climate change and free trade.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that Europe must defend “the vibrant, free and diverse societies that we represent, showing that people who look different to each other can live peacefully together, that this isn’t against the tenor of our times.”
“Rather, it is what makes us strong,” he said.
Kallas said Rubio’s speech sent an important message that America and Europe are and will remain intertwined.
“It is also clear that we don’t see eye to eye on all the issues and this will remain the case as well, but I think we can work from there,” she said.
