BEIJUING (Dispatches) - China has slammed the U.S. for “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation” following Washington’s latest push to wage a new probe into the origins of the coronavirus, even after a recent World Health Organization (WHO) mission to China proved inconclusive.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian once again accused Washington on Wednesday of “spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation such as a laboratory leak” after the right-wing Wall Street Journal newspaper cited U.S. intelligence to claim that three lab workers from Wuhan – where the contagion originated – were hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms in November 2019, a month before the pandemic’s first declared case.
Zhao further described the U.S.-led revival of the theory as “disrespectful” to the WHO investigation, insisting that the move amounted to “undermining of global solidarity to fight the virus.”
Calling on Washington to open its own virology facilities to scrutiny, the Chinese official then emphasized, “If the U.S. really wants full transparency then it should, like China did, invite WHO experts to visit the U.S. and investigate.”
“Open up Fort Detrick military base as early as possible, and all the bio labs the U.S. has around the world,” Zhao further underlined, referring to an American research facility in Maryland, near Washington, DC.
The development came after the theory that the coronavirus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was again highlighted by U.S. authorities and media outlets in an apparent bid to wage yet another probe into the origins of the deadly virus following the WHO mission to the Chinese city.
The long-delayed report by WHO, by the team of international experts sent to Wuhan and their Chinese counterparts, drew no strong conclusions about the origins of the pandemic.