The Chinese official media quoted a Swiss biologist accusing the United States of politicizing Covid’s origin investigation, which has been quietly deleted because the Swiss government stated that there is no such person.
On July 24, an account named Wilson Edwards posted on Facebook that he had witnessed or learned about America’s efforts to politicize the United States. World Health Organization’s Covid-19 survey From the inside.
Edwards quoted unnamed WHO sources and “research fellows” as saying that they were under “heavy pressure and even intimidation from the United States and certain media.”
“WHO sources told me that the United States is so obsessed with attacks China On the issue of traceability, it does not want to open its eyes to see the data and discoveries. “
Facebook posts are widely reprinted by Chinese official media, including the Global Times and People’s Daily-with the title “The United States Attempts to Overturn Reports and Use WHO as a Political Tool”-China Daily and CGTN in multiple languages .
But Edwards’ growing fame caught the attention of the Swiss embassy, prompting staff to search citizen records and academic publications for any mention of him. It posted on Twitter on Tuesday:
“Looking for Wilson Edwards, allegedly [Swiss] Biologist, cited in Chinese media and social media in the past few days. If you exist, we want to see you! ” it says.
“But it’s more likely that this is a [sic] Fake news, we call on Chinese media and netizens to withdraw these posts. “
An accompanying statement stated that the Chinese report was “false” and that there was no registered Swiss citizen Wilson Edwards, nor did he have any academic articles in the field of biology under his name.
On Wednesday, articles from Chinese state media began to disappear from the Internet, including the Global Times and CGTN. Wilson Edwards’ Facebook account-created on the same day as the only post with a profile photo of the Oxford University Library and only three friends-also appears to have been deleted.
On Wednesday afternoon, the People’s Daily Facebook post and at least one “China Daily” article still existed.
The unclear origin of the Covid-19 virus has become a key point of hostility between China and other countries (especially the United States).
China has consistently rejected theories and allegations that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan laboratory.Investigation by a joint China-WHO team in January-criticized Because of lack of transparency and access Claiming that the investigator is Did not provide the data they requested – The possibility of determining laboratory leakage theory is lower than in other cases, but this possibility is not ruled out.
The head of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus), later stated that it promoted the theory of discounts. Already “premature” But China caught this discovery. Since then, it refused to cooperate with the WHO’s proposal to further explore the possibility and audit the Chinese laboratory as part of the next phase of investigation. On the contrary, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the official media strongly advocated unproven theories about the virus leaking from US facilities.
The Guardian has contacted the Chinese media for comments.
