Xinhua Commentary: U.S. should embrace openness in global virus origin tracing

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, July 23, 2021
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by Xinhua writer Ma Qian

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- As the COVID-19 pandemic is still taking a heavy toll on the world, the last thing countries around the world want to do is to politicize the search for the origins of the virus.

To do that, one needs to demonstrate openness and follow the guide of science and facts. Clearly, the United States is failing on both fronts.

As China is the world's first country to report confirmed cases, Beijing has already invited the World Health Organization (WHO) experts to come to China twice for the origin tracing. And the WHO experts have concluded in a report in March that the so-called "lab leak" theory is extremely unlikely, and recommended conducting further research around earlier cases globally.

Next, the origin tracing work should be conducted in the United States, the country that sees the most infections and deaths in the pandemic, and whose fight against the outbreak has a flurry of questions unanswered.

The most mysterious question is whether the closure of the biochemical research base at Fort Detrick, which stores the most deadly and infectious viruses in the world, including Ebola, smallpox and SARS, has any connections with the pandemic and when the first infection occured in the United States.

Such queries did not come out of thin air. The Detrick lab abruptly closed in July 2019, amid some unexplained outbreaks of respiratory disease in some parts of the United States. And the latest evidence is showing that the earliest infections in the United States can date back to late December 2019.

If the United States acctually believes it could be as open as China on the issue, it should answer those questions in front of the global community with science-based facts and open its door to the WHO.

However, the United States is turning a blind eye to those mounting global concerns.

What is more appalling is that in late May, the White House has tasked the U.S. Intelligence Community with a mission to come to a "definitive conclusion" into virus origin within 90 days.

It is weird enough that the U.S. government is turning to its intelligence community for a scientific question, and gives so short a period of time for an utterly complicated research. What is the motive behind this highly politicized decision? Why the rush?

At a time when scientists should have a bigger say in the world's quest for the truth of the once-in-a-century pandemic, it is increasingly obvious that some U.S. scientists, like Anthony Fauci, have been facing a buildup of domestic pressure, even death threats, for speaking up for truth.

Over the past year and more, the United States has let the world down for its immense failure to play a leading role in the global war on the pandemic. On uncovering the secrets of the virus, the United States should immediately stop its efforts to politicize the virus origin tracing, and start to embrace openness, objectivity and professionalism. Enditem

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