China fired back, reiterating its position that a preliminary investigation is sufficient and that the motivation for requesting more data is political rather than scientific investigation.
Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told reporters, “We are opposed to political tracing… and abandon the joint report.” This was published after the WHO expert group visited Wuhan in January. “We support scientific tracking.”
The report stated that the spread of the virus from bats to humans through intermediate animals is the most likely scenario, and the leakage of the Wuhan Virology Laboratory is “extremely unlikely.”
Ma rejected the suggestion of a new investigation route.
“The conclusions and recommendations of the WHO and China joint report have been recognized by the international community and the scientific community,” he said.
“Future global traceability work should and can only be carried out on the basis of this report, rather than starting anew.”
