This is not satire. The Chinese Communist Party actually believes the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its bat researchers, rather than being held accountable for the global pandemic, should actually be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.
The comments were made by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson during a press conference after the WIV was named as one of the candidates for the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ 2021 Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize.
From Chinese state-run media:
China's "bat woman" Shi Zhengli, and Yuan Zhiming, director of the WIV's Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory were selected as the outstanding contributors of the WIV group candidates.
CAS published the candidate list on its official website on Friday. The award is mainly given to individuals or research groups who have made or demonstrated significant achievements in the past five years. CAS awards 10 such individuals and research groups annually.
CAS said the WIV quickly carried out pathogen identification after the outbreak of COVID-19, completed the entire virus genome sequencing and virus isolation within a short time, confirmed that the COVID-19 virus shares the same functional receptor as the SARS virus, systematically analyzed the basic biological characteristics of the virus, and revealed that coronavirus carried by bats may be the evolutionary ancestor of the COVID-19 coronavirus. (Global Times)
Origin-tracing is about rigorous scientific research, not far-fetched connections. Prof. Luc Montagnier was awarded Nobel Prize for discovery of HIV; Mr. Louis Pasteur was honored for finding of microbes; WIV deserves Nobel Prize, not criticism, for its study of COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/C0mNl7xdpq
— Lijian Zhao ??? (@zlj517) June 17, 2021
Though the Chinese media denounced the "'lab-leak' conspiracy" in Western media, the notion that COVID-19 came from a Chinese lab has finally become a credible theory even the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledge.
As National Review points out, the CCP's position on this only serves as "another indicator that it intends to change nothing in the aftermath of the pandemic."
