Commentary: Science-defying U.S. report impedes effort to fight COVID-19

BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. report on the origins of COVID-19 that took 90 days to compile and was published on Friday is a ridiculous joke, because the job of science was done by intelligence agencies rather than the scientific community, defying the essence of science.

As the old Chinese saying goes, one cannot climb a tree to catch fish. It is the job of scientists to find the origins of the novel coronavirus, relying on solid evidence and scientific logic, and the process could take many years. Asking the intelligence agency to trace the origins of COVID-19 in 90 days is like climbing a tree to catch fish.

It is not surprising that the long-awaited report failed to deliver a clear conclusion that might help fight the pandemic, both in the United States and globally.

Evidence is emerging that the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to have originated in multiple places around the world.

A study conducted by the Italian National Cancer Institute in Milan showed that some people in Italy had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as early as September 2019.

Human sewage samples collected on Nov. 27, 2019 in Florianopolis, the capital of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, contained traces of COVID-19.

A number of people, mainly from the United States, have gone on social media to recount their experiences of COVID-19 infections in late 2019.

An article published by the journal Nature in early August reported that researchers of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have analyzed serum samples collected from white-tailed deer in northeastern United States, and found that of those samples collected in 2019, one was detected as carrying the virus-related antibody, indicating that it was infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2019.

However, the U.S. government has turned a blind eye to all that evidence, urged its intelligence community to provide a politically motivated report and wasted 90 days on blame-shifting.

The country has been split over issues such as COVID-19 vaccination and wearing masks. The number of COVID-19 pandemic related hospitalizations in the United States reached more than 100,000 last week for the second time amid waves of the highly contagious Delta variant. The science-defying report, which shows no intention of facing up to the United States' own problems, will undermine that country's efforts to curb the pandemic.

What is even worse is that the U.S. government's attempts at politicization have disrupted the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and wasted public resources that could otherwise have been used for pandemic prevention.

More than 80 countries have written to the WHO director-general, issued statements or sent diplomatic notes to voice their objection to the United States' attempts at politicization.

Now it's time for the U.S. government to return to the correct track of origins tracing based on science. It doesn't have another 90 days to waste.