Ridiculous for U.S. to repeatedly hype up “lab leak” conspiracy

U.S. President Joe Biden recently made a statement ordering the intelligence community to look into whether COVID-19 emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. He also pressed China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence.

This move is merely another attempt at political manipulation made under the pretext of tracing the origin of the virus, and is no different from those made at the beginning of the epidemic.

Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2021 shows a scene of the WHO-China joint study press conference in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)

China has always supported the World Health Organization (WHO) in its global study of the origins of COVID-19. While undertaking the daunting task of responding to the epidemic at home, China has twice invited WHO experts in for origin-tracing studies, during which international and Chinese experts jointly made field visits, analyzed a large number of data, issued joint mission reports, and reached authoritative, formal and science-based conclusions. The joint WHO-China study on COVID-19 origin-tracing reached a definite conclusion: that its introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an “extremely unlikely” pathway.

However, the U.S. side continues to turn a blind eye to the conclusions based on scientific research and facts, and is preparing to launch so-called “investigations” on other countries. What is the U.S. up to?

The U.S. efforts in repeatedly hyping up the “laboratory leak” conspiracy are nothing but a trick to deflect attention.

Multiple rounds of research have shown that COVID-19 cases were detected in various places around the world early in the second half of 2019. After the China-WHO joint expert team saw fruitful results in their investigations, the international community called for another phase of the WHO’s study on the origins of the virus.

More than 33 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 600,000 deaths have been reported in the U.S., both the highest in the world.

In July 2019, there were reports of unexplained outbreaks of respiratory disease in northern Virginia and on the subsequent EVALI outbreaks in Wisconsin.

Furthermore, the U.S. has the largest scale and the highest number of bio-labs in the world, with media reports of a virus leak at the bio-chemical research base Fort Detrick.

If the U.S. side really cares about the origins of the virus, it should elaborate on these “coincidences” and invite WHO experts to the U.S. to carry out investigations. But in fact, the U.S. has run away from its obligations since the very beginning, repeatedly questioned the conclusions of the WHO experts, and expressed strong discontent with the conclusions drawn from science and facts.

Origin-tracing of the COVID-19 virus is a serious and complex scientific issue. All conclusions must be made based on science, and all investigations should be conducted by the WHO, which serves as the one and only eligible organization for origin-tracing in the world. The U.S. decision to order its own intelligence agencies to trace the origin of the virus with unpublished “speculations” and classified “information” will prove unhelpful for the task.

Moreover, the U.S. intelligence community has long had a notorious reputation, most notably when it used a test tube of laundry detergent as alleged evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, dragging innocent civilians into its wars.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once said, “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s – it was like – we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

With these notorious track records, the U.S. demands for origin tracing by its intelligence organs are nothing short of a political conspiracy.

The reason behind the U.S. attempt to overturn the results of the investigation headed by the WHO is that it is not satisfied with the conclusions reached by the China-WHO joint expert team. According to the U.S. vision, the epidemic is not natural in origin, but man-made. For this reason, the U.S. government, some U.S. media outlets and a handful of experts are staging this farce based on the presumption of guilt.

However, even some U.S. netizens and experts have begun to refute the claims being made by the U.S. side, saying that the only reason they were reported as credible despite no new evidence being found was that many people were paid. And in the U.S. it is more important to make China shoulder its “responsibilities” than to build a defense against the epidemic.

While U.S. President Joe Biden called for a further investigation into the origin of the virus, many U.S. scientists believe the novel coronavirus is of natural origin.

"The evidence right now, well, for the lab side, it's political: It's from an intel agency that's not been shown. That's not scientific," said WHO team member and zoologist Peter Daszak, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"Nothing's really tipped me or made me flip-flop or anything about it," said Robert Garry, a microbiologist with Tulane University who has analyzed the genome of the virus, as cited by National Public Radio on Friday. "I'm more convinced than ever that this is a natural virus."

Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health Francis Collins appeared to have dismissed the Wuhan lab leak theory of COVID-19 as a "conspiracy" in an email, according to a report by New York Post.

In the face of the pandemic, any political manipulation will disrupt international cooperation and global efforts in fighting the disease. For some politicians in the U.S., political interests are far more important than saving lives and seeking truth. But they have overestimated their ability to spread disinformation and underestimated others’ ability to tell right from wrong. Conspiracies and lies will eventually be exposed by science and facts.