The World Health Organization is facing bipartisan criticism for its COVID-19 origins report that suggested the virus came from an animal rather than the Wuhan lab in China.
A leaked draft of the joint report from the WHO and China states it is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus escaped from a lab, despite several studies that say otherwise. Even one of China’s own virologists published a report last year proving COVID-19 was “conveniently created” in a laboratory setting because its “biological characteristics are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus.”
The fact that WHO officials produced the report — which is expected to be formally released on Tuesday — alongside Chinese Community Party officials is proof that it shouldn’t be taken seriously, said Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-NY.
“Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party has lied & covered-up to the world the pandemic’s origins,” Zeldin said in a statement. “The World Health Organization has played along time & again as the CCP’s useful idiots.”
Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party has lied & covered-up to the world the pandemic’s origins. The World Health Organization has played along time & again as the CCP’s useful idiots. A thorough & truly independent investigation is long overdue. https://t.co/7zeXjaupmY
— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) March 29, 2021
Atlantic Council senior fellow Jamie Metzl, a former staffer to President Joe Biden when he led the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, agreed and said the WHO’s coordination with China would have been like allowing the Soviet Union to investigate the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
“It was agreed first that China would have veto power over who even got to be on the mission,” Metzl explained in a recent 60 Minutes interview.
“WHO agreed to that. On top of that, the WHO agreed that in most instances, China would do the primary investigation and then just share its findings with these international experts. So these international experts weren’t allowed to do their own primary investigation,” he said.
Former Clinton administration NSC official says China didn’t allow international experts to carry out a full and unrestricted inquiry into the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, tonight on 60 Minutes: https://t.co/zIXsfKlpJU pic.twitter.com/MwK9kdeXiY
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) March 28, 2021
Several other experts have also come out against the WHO’s report, including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield, who said there is ample reason to believe the coronavirus really came from China’s Wuhan lab.
“I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped,” he told CNN last week.
“Now, other people don’t believe that, that’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out. It’s not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in the laboratory to infect the laboratory worker,” he added.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was one of the first officials who made this argument, but he was immediately dismissed by Democrats and the mainstream media. USA Today claimed Cotton’s laboratory theory was a “myth.” CNN argued Cotton was playing “a dangerous game.” And the New York Times dismissed it as a “fringe theory.”
But all Cotton did was point out what many experts are now willing to say out loud: China should not be trusted.
“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says. And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all,” Cotton said at the time.
