The US wants a “robust and clear” international probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in China, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has said.
Speaking to reporters, she said it was “imperative we get to the bottom” of how the virus appeared and spread. She highlighted “great concern” over “misinformation” from “some sources in China”.
The coronavirus has killed more than two million people and infected at least 100m since first being detected about a year ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
This month a team of experts from the World Health Organization arrived in Wuhan after repeated delays to investigate the virus’s origins.
Scientists agree that the disease has an animal origin and particular focus is on the Wuhan “wet market”, which sells live animals.
Beijing has said that although Wuhan is where the first cluster of cases was detected, it is not necessarily where the virus originated. China denies as conspiracy theories the idea that it originated in a lab, something Donald Trump touted while in office.
Beijing countered by suggesting a supposed link to a US biological weapons lab in Maryland.
Psaki said the new Biden government was devoting significant resources of its own to understanding what happened and would not take the WHO report for granted. Washington will “draw on information collected and analysed by our intelligence community” and also work with allies to evaluate the “credibility” of the international report.
In addition the Biden administration intended to boost its staffing in Beijing, something that “fell back in the last administration”.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
