The claim that China concealed information on early coronavirus cases is not true, Zhou Lei, a researcher from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a press conference on Saturday.
The World Health Organization (WHO)-China joint study report has been widely endorsed since it was released, including by the WHO, said Zhou.
The WHO should avoid being utilized by some countries to politicize the origin-tracing of COVID-19, said Shen Hongbing, head of the China CDC.
“A few officials and experts have recently made irresponsible comments denying the results of past research,” Shen said at the press conference. “Those were not scientific and were rude offenses of international scientists who participated in the research.”
“That’s politicizing of COVID-19 origin-tracing and it is not tolerable by scientists in China and the world,” he added.
China invited the WHO to conduct origin-tracing work in Wuhan in 2021. The joint WHO-China expert team released a report saying that transmission through an intermediary host was “very likely” to be the culprit, while a lab accident was “extremely unlikely.”
After the work was completed, China went on looking for the origin from various angles and shared the progress with the international community through reports and publications, according to Shen.
“Some people are trying to politicize the origin-tracing work and smear China,” he said. “But the scientific community will not be fooled by their clumsy manipulations.”
