The rapid spread of Delta variants around the world makes it even more necessary to understand the origin, spread and evolution of COVID-19 in order to improve the ability of humans to respond to major health emergencies in the future.
Zhang Ming is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union and head of the mission.
However, the problem is that the trend to politicize the origin of the virus and use it as a tool is on the rise. As a member of the international community, we should say no to this move, because it undermines global cooperation in the fight against the pandemic and hinders traceability.
China has always supported and actively participated in the traceability of the virus, and is committed to making contributions to mankind’s fight against the epidemic. In January last year, China reported the epidemic to the WHO for the first time, shared the virus genome sequence, and took the lead in cooperating with the WHO to determine the source of the virus.
Over the past year or so, China has twice invited WHO experts to China for traceability. At the beginning of this year, authoritative experts from 10 countries including the United States, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and their Chinese counterparts formed a joint expert group to conduct a 28-day joint investigation in China. During this period, they jointly analyzed data, conducted field investigations, visited and exchanged opinions, and continuously established scientific consensus.
On March 30, the China-WHO joint investigation report was officially released. The WHO and international experts participating in the joint study highly appreciate China’s openness and transparency.
However, some politicians in some countries are not satisfied with the scientific conclusions of the report. One of them is that the possibility of virus laboratory leaks is extremely small. Disregarding scientific common sense, they continued to instruct intelligence agencies to report the origin of COVID within 90 days.
To allow the intelligence department to intervene in tracing the source is obviously not aimed at viruses from the natural world, but to make misleading conclusions. Through political manipulation, they have also been trying to coerce and pressure scientists to support the “laboratory leak theory.” They even pushed the WHO Secretariat to propose a second-stage traceability work plan without the unanimous consent of the member states, in an attempt to overturn and distort the joint research report.
By politicizing the traceability, their real purpose is not to determine the source of the virus, but to shift the responsibility to certain countries and races. This approach not only violates scientific traceability, but also ignores the safety of people’s lives. To make matters worse, it poisons the global atmosphere of cooperation in the fight against the epidemic. There is no shortage of such precedents in history.
For this reason, many countries, organizations and people of insight have stepped forward to express their strong concern and opposition to this malicious act. Up to now, more than 70 countries have supported the China-WHO joint research report by writing letters to the WHO Director-General, issuing statements or posting notes. More than 300 political parties, social organizations and think tanks from more than 100 countries and regions submitted a joint statement to the WHO Secretariat, calling for an objective and fair global traceability and resolutely opposed to politicizing this issue.
Just last month, in a joint statement entitled “Science, not speculation, is essential to determining how SARS-CoV-2 reaches humans”, the statement was published in Lancet, 24 world-renowned medical experts confirmed that there is still no scientifically-verified evidence regarding the recommendations of the pandemic’s laboratory leak sources. On August 25th, 11 international experts from the China-WHO Joint Delegation wrote an article on nature, Further explained the reasons for their research conclusions, and emphasized the importance of global tracking along the most probable path based on data and evidence.
The scientific community increasingly agrees that finding out how a pandemic started is a very complicated process. To obtain objective and fair results, scientists must do it and observe the laws of science.
The international community should hear and take these rational voices seriously. The future global traceability work should be based on the conclusions and recommendations of the China-WHO joint research report widely recognized by the international and scientific communities. The WHO Secretariat should consult with Member States on the work plan and follow-up mechanism of the global tracking work in accordance with the resolutions of the World Health Assembly, and fully respect the opinions of Member States.
The traceability plan involving the countries concerned should be determined through negotiation to provide a basis for effective cooperation. In particular, it should be noted that traceability requires global cooperation, and no country should politicize this scientific issue for its own political agenda.
Europe is the cradle of modern science. China is willing to work with the European Union and its member states to support and participate in global traceability cooperation with a scientific attitude, and maintain its scientificity and seriousness. By doing so, we will contribute our strength to mankind’s efforts to overcome epidemics and establish a national health community.
