COVID-19 origins: China rejects WHO proposal to return to Wuhan
Al JazeeraChina has rejected a proposal from the World Health Organization that the expert team investigating the origins of COVID-19 should return to the sites in China where the coronavirus first emerged, saying researchers should instead make a priority of the “very likely” possibility that the virus originated in animals and expand their work to other countries around the world. Speaking at a news conference at the State Information Council Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, said he was “surprised” that the WHO had proposed the team return to places in the central city of Wuhan that they visited earlier this year and also investigate the hypothesis that it leaked from a lab. In a closed-door meeting last week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proposed the second stage of the agency’s investigation into the origins of coronavirus should include further studies in China as well as laboratory “audits”. “For that to happen, we expect China to support this next phase of the scientific process by sharing all relevant data in a spirit of transparency.” The WHO has been under growing pressure to step up its investigation into the origin of the virus, which first emerged in Wuhan and has now killed more than 4.1 million people around the world.