Origin of coronavirus pandemic: China says it all started in the United States

A Chinese epidemiologist aimed United States as the starting point of the Coronavirus pandemic and noted that the disease could have circulated in the north of the country as soon as December 2019 thus rejecting the theories which explain the emergence of COVID-19[female[feminineat a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The study, released this week by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), showed that at least seven people in five states nationwide were infected with SARS-CoV-2 weeks before the country reported its first official cases.

A joint study between China and World Health Organization (WHO) released in March said COVID-19 likely originated from the country’s wildlife trade and the virus was transmitted to humans from bats via an intermediate species.

Nonetheless, Beijing has promoted the theory that COVID-19 entered China from overseas through contaminated frozen food. Several foreign politicians are also asking for more investigations into the possibility that it was leaked from a laboratory.

Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the state tabloid World time this attention should be focused on the United States, which has been slow to test people in the early stages of the epidemic, and which is also home to many biological laboratories. “All the biological weapons issues the country has at its disposal should be brought under scrutiny,” he said. Reuters.

Regarding the US study, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it was now “obvious” that the COVID-19 epidemic has ‘multiple origins’ and which other countries should cooperate with the WHO.

The origin of the coronavirus pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a source of political tension between Beijing and Washington, with a focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), located in the city of the same name and where the outbreak was first identified in late 2019.

China has been criticized for its lack of transparency when providing data on the first cases of COVID-19 and viruses studied at WIV.

A report from a US government national laboratory concluded that it is plausible that the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory, he reported. The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

A previous study raised the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 circulated in Europe as early as SeptemberBut experts said that doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t come from China, where many similar coronaviruses have been found in wild animals.