The geopolitical impact of the covid-19 pandemic 2:44
Editor's Note:
Lanhee J. Chen is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion.
He is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and the Director of Home Policy Studies in the Stanford University Public Policy Program.
Previously, Chen was Policy Director for the Romney-Ryan presidential campaign in 2012 and Senior Policy Adviser to the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC).
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President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for an investigation by US intelligence agencies into the true origins of COVID-19. If this research reveals new information, it could offer insight into the validity of the much-debated theory that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
This scientific research center is known to have been researching on coronaviruses.
The explanation for the "lab leak," which was criticized and dismissed by several analysts, was given new life after The Wall Street Journal reported on a previously undisclosed US intelligence report that revealed that three investigators from the Wuhan lab They became so ill, with symptoms similar to Covid-19 in November 2019, before the official reports of the first outbreak, that they had to seek hospital care.
China responds to Biden's investigation into the origin of covid-19 in a laboratory & # 8230;
asking to investigate a laboratory in the USA
The true origins of COVID-19 remain a mystery, one complicated by the recent escalation of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. There is no doubt that Biden took an important step by asking the US intelligence community to present additional information, avenues of exploration, and "China-specific questions" about the origins of COVID-19. But this alone is not enough if we want to discover the truth.
The Biden government itself should, apart from the World Health Organization, lead a multilateral effort to investigate the origins of the virus. We should share our information with other countries seeking answers, pool our collective knowledge about the origins of the virus, and together lobby China to allow access to facilities and data that would help answer the remaining questions about the virus. origins of covid-19.
The laboratory leak theory has been considered by at least one US intelligence agency as the most likely explanation for the origins of covid-19, while two agencies think the virus is more likely to have spread to humans through from an infected animal. Biden noted that existing intelligence assessments were of low enough confidence that neither the theory of the laboratory leak, nor the theory that the virus arose from natural causes, could be ruled out. Earlier this month, 18 scientists from leading research universities around the world wrote a letter in a major scientific journal arguing that "the hypotheses about contagions, both natural and laboratory,"they had to be seriously evaluated and investigated transparently and independently.
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Biden asks the intelligence community to report on the origin of the covid-19 in 90 days
An investigation into the true origins of the virus is essential not only for scientific reasons, but also because policy makers around the world need this knowledge to better prepare for future pandemics.
The World Health Organization is a multilateral body designed to promote public health around the world and would be a natural candidate to lead research on the origins of the virus. But the WHO and its current CEO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have a history of being too closely tied to China. Tedros received the support of the Government of China when he sought the direction of the WHO and was quick to praise the early actions of Beijing in relation to the coronavirus effusively, when little was still known about it, the extent of its spread and its mortality. Third-party evaluations of WHO's performance at the start of the pandemic have indicated that the group was too willing to reassure China and thus,it was not quick enough to sound the alarm about the pandemic and its global impact.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the WHO's own investigation into the origins of COVID-19 concluded that a laboratory leak was probably not the cause of the pandemic and that a naturally-occurring infection was more likely. But the researchers were only allowed to examine research conducted by Chinese state scientists and did not have full access to the data or facilities that would have allowed them to assess whether the virus that causes COVID-19 might have been present before it was found. confirmed the first cases of the disease in China in December 2019.
US leaders have voiced their own doubts about both the transparency and the independence of the investigation, hinting that China got in the way of a full explanation.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, for example, noted "deep concerns about the way the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them."
WHO experts investigating the origin of covid-19 point to overlooked Chinese data for a new study, says a source
Beijing, for its part, considers the case closed and has argued that attention should be directed to other countries for the role they may have played in the early days of the pandemic.
In fact, the Chinese government has vigorously denied the theory of the escape from the laboratory, calling it a "conspiracy created by the US intelligence agencies."
In late March, the US joined 13 other countries in calling on WHO to conduct a "transparent and independent analysis and assessment" of the pandemic, "free from interference and undue influence."
More specifically, the Biden administration asks the WHO to complete a second phase of its investigation in a way that allows "international experts the independence necessary to fully assess the origin of the virus and the first days of the outbreak."
Unfortunately, the Biden administration remains too condescending to the WHO and overly confident in the organization's ability to manage an investigation that is more thorough or, more importantly, independent of the influence of the Government of China.
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Although China continues to obstruct an external investigation, a multilateral investigation led by the United States can come close to the answers we seek about what happened during the early days of the pandemic.
Most importantly, this effort can directly address the theory of laboratory leakage, something Beijing itself has little interest in exploring.
Biden has been eager to redouble our commitment and to partner with America's friends and allies around the world.
Reaching the root of a pandemic that has already killed nearly 3.5 million people worldwide represents a golden opportunity to do so.
Wuhan
