Three hundred political parties, social organizations, and think tanks from 100 countries have issued a joint statement to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Secretariat , warning it to avoid politicizing the issue of coronavirus origin tracing, Xinhua and other Chinese media reported Aug. 2. This refers to the WHO’s recently-announced plan, obviously under pressure from the U.S., to have the second phase of its origin-tracing investigation consider the theory that the virus might have originated at the Wuhan Virology Lab, proposing that labs in Wuhan be audited. This was a reversal of earlier studies which said it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus escaped from a lab, CGTN reported today. Last week, WHO’s executive director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that in initial studies, there had been a “premature” push to reject the Wuhan Lab theory. Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, flatly rejected that assertion, according to National Public Radio.
The joint statement emphasizes, “We as humans live in a community in which we rise and fall together with a shared future... Viruses know no border or races; the only way to defeat them is for the international community to work together.” Origin-tracing is a “serious scientific issue that must be studied by scientists and medical experts around the world through cooperation before any scientific conclusion is drawn on the basis of facts and evidence.” The WHO’s Secretariat, the statement charges, acted unilaterally, disregarding resolutions made by the World Health Assembly, failed to consult with member nations or act on the basis of the latest research on global origin-tracing efforts.
