China calls on int'l community to resist politicizing origin-tracing

BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The international community should consciously resist political manipulation on origin-tracing and carry out origin-tracing research in various countries and regions around the world, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said here Friday.

Wang Wenbin made the remarks in response to a query on attempts by some people in the United States to push the WHO to carry out the second-phase origin-tracing investigation in China.

Wang said origin-tracing is a scientific issue, and science and facts should be respected. The joint WHO-China study on COVID-19 origin-tracing published in March this year clearly pointed out that the origin-tracing should be based on a global perspective, and the work in the future will not be limited to a certain region and will be carried out in multiple countries and regions.

From the overall situation of the pandemic, he said COVID-19 has multiple origins and broke out in multiple places. The mayor of Belleville, New Jersey of the United States, said he was infected with COVID-19 in November 2019, and the test results showed he tested positive for antibodies related to the virus that causes COVID-19, which was more than two months earlier than the first confirmed case reported in the United States, and also earlier than the first case reported in China.

Wang said studies found that there was evidence of COVID-19 infection in five U.S. states as of December 2019. A joint study between the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington has also shown that the number of patients with respiratory symptoms and diseases from late December 2019 to February 2020 has increased significantly, indicating that COVID-19 had already spread in U.S. communities before the country had clinical awareness and testing capabilities.

Besides, EVALI broke out on a large scale in Wisconsin in the United States in July 2019, and patients' lung CT showed a fuzzy white mass, which was very similar to the symptoms of COVID-19, he said.

Wang stressed that hyping up the so-called second-phase origin tracing in China is not the right way to find the origin of the virus. It does however feed the political manipulation of labeling the virus and politicizing origin-tracing, which will undermine global cooperation in this regard.

The international community should consciously resist all kinds of political manipulation on origin-tracing, and carry out origin-tracing research in various countries and regions to ensure that it can effectively prevent and respond to a pandemic that may reappear in the future, he said.