by Eric Lendrum
On Thursday, the Chinese government confirmed that it will not cooperate with a proposed second investigation into the possible origins of the coronavirus conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), as reported by CNN.
The announcement was made by Deputy Head of China’s National Health Commission Zeng Yixin, who said at a press conference that he was “surprised” that the WHO’s proposal for the investigation included the possibility that the lab leak theory would be taken into consideration.
“In some aspects, the WHO’s plan for [the] next phase of [the] investigation of the coronavirus origin doesn’t respect common sense, and it’s against science,” Zeng claimed, without elaborating. “It’s impossible for us to accept such a plan.”
Zeng also directly contradicted recently-unveiled evidence that seems to confirm the lab leak theory, where it was revealed that several workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the controversial lab where it is believed the virus originated, had come down with symptoms of the coronavirus back in late 2019, long before the world was even aware of the disease. Zeng falsely stated that “no worker or researcher at the WIV got infected by the coronavirus.”
This new evidence regarding the WIV, as well as the revelations that the United States government and other entities had been providing gain-of-function research to the WIV specifically for its coronavirus studies over the years, has led to renewed calls for more thorough investigations into whether or not the WIV was truly the origin of the global pandemic. The WHO’s previous investigation ultimately claimed that the virus was created naturally and first appeared among animals before spreading to humans.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who had come under fire for his close ties to the Chinese government, has become more outspoken against China in recent months. He called for China “to be transparent and open and to cooperate” with a new investigation, saying that “we owe it to the millions who suffered and the millions who died to know what happened.”
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Eric Lendrum graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the Secretary of the College Republicans and the founding chairman of the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter. He has interned for Young America’s Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the White House, and has worked for numerous campaigns including the 2018 re-election of Congressman Devin Nunes (CA-22). He is currently a co-host of The Right Take podcast. He is a contributor to the Center for American Greatness.
Photo “COVID Investigation” by CDC Global (CC BY 2.0).
