The only way to know for sure whether the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab or originated naturally is if China opens up its lab records and allows for a complete, thorough, independent investigation into the research its scientists were conducting.
It never was going to be easy to get China to cooperate in this manner, and thanks to weak-kneed leaders in the West, it’s becoming impossible.
After a series of meetings this weekend, the G-7 leaders issued a statement on Sunday calling for another investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, this one more “transparent” than the last. They were right to do so: the original World Health Organization investigation was an obvious failure, marred by severe conflicts of interest and a refusal to push China for more access.
But the world leaders’ statement offers no assurance that a second phase of the WHO investigation would be any different.
“We also call for a timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based WHO-convened Phase 2 COVID-19 Origins study including, as recommended by the experts’ report, in China,” they said.
Turning to the WHO is not a serious way to seek accountability from China. It’s hard to imagine anyone less fit for that task.
This is the organization that ignored Taiwan’s warning that COVID-19 could spread from human to human and then repeated China’s lie that human transmission was impossible. The WHO blocked Taiwan from participating in emergency meetings to coordinate Asian countries’ response to the outbreak. The WHO praised the Chinese Communist Party’s response to the pandemic, even though it was clear China withheld critical information about the virus’s spread from the rest of the world.
It should have been obvious from the WHO’s first origins report that the organization still cared more about pleasing Beijing than discovering the truth about the coronavirus. The report dismissed the theory that COVID-19 may have escaped from a Chinese lab as “extremely unlikely” but entertained the CCP’s favorite theory that COVID-19 arrived in China via frozen food as “possible.”
The WHO asserted the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s facilities “were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring program” even though a 2018 State Department report confirmed the WIV’s lab practices were dangerously unsafe, and a 2019 report revealed three WIV researchers fell ill with what might have been the coronavirus.
The WHO’s credibility is gone. It has proved repeatedly throughout this pandemic it will pander to China’s interests to the detriment of the rest of the world. And the G-7’s attempt to give the organization a second chance proves WHO leaders aren’t the only ones afraid of stepping on China’s toes.
