China Health Execs Rap WHO For Seeking Truth On COVID Origin

Chinese health officials defended their search for the source of the COVID-19 virus and lashed out Saturday at the World Health Organization (WHO) after its leader said Beijing should have shared genetic information earlier, Joe McDonald reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The global health body’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan in central China, where the first cases were detected in late 2019, “should have been shared three years ago.”

The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful,” said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing.

He accused WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicize COVID-19.” Shen’s philippic could not belie the fact that China hid the presence of raccoon dogs in the Wuhan market that hosted a virus similar to COVID-19.

The global health body’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan in central China, where the first cases were detected in late 2019, “should have been shared three years ago.”

In trying to squirm out of the hole, Shen blurted out: “As a responsible country and as scientists, we have always actively shared research results with scientists from around the world.”

China has behaved dismally in trying to show that the COVID-19 virus came from overseas and could not demolish the fact that the first cases came from Wuhan.

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