It's been years since COVID-19 was first identified, yet investigations into the origins of the virus have remained unable to provide a complete scientific explanation for how the virus was developed or was introduced to the public to allow its spread around the globe.
Most of the blame for the lack of a conclusive determination lies with China, where government and public health leaders have refused to allow access to investigators. But there has also been some apparent complicity from those leading the World Health Organization and other entities as seen in their uncritical acceptance of claims made by the Chinese Communist Party and lack of transparency about how China treated scientists investigating COVID's outbreak.
Now, according to a report in Nature, the World Health Organization has "quietly shelved" the next phase of its investigation into the origins of COVID "citing ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China." Again, the CCP is stonewalling investigators and further risking the chance that another incident could occur to unleash pathogens.
As Nature's reporting explains, "without access to China, there is little that the WHO can do to advance the studies." China, evidently, "rejected the WHO's plans, taking particular issue with the proposal to investigate lab breaches." How convenient.
Complete, utter failure by the health care community.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) February 14, 2023
I have no words... Just furious.
10 million dead, and their response?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://t.co/FlzJ1n8T6p
Gerald Keusch of Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory Institute told Nature that inquiries into the origins of COVID were "poorly handled by the global community...poorly handled by China...poorly handled by the WHO" — which Keusch said should have been more transparent about China's now-successful work to stonewall investigations.
Now, the WHO is throwing in the towel on the investigation, essentially giving up hope of ever learning the true origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. That means any role China played will remain unpenalized by the global community and there's no way of knowing how likely it is that another virus could make its way into the population in Wuhan or elsewhere before spreading to the rest of the planet.
And people who say "Oh, but we need their assistance for future diseases..."
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) February 14, 2023
YEAH, AND WHERE DID THAT GET IS LAST TIME, WHEN IT ACTUALLY MATTERED?
President Joe Biden is, like with most adversarial countries but especially China, unlikely to do anything to push for accountability and transparency from the Chinese Communist Party. He apparently does not care that Beijing knew about COVID before the rest of the world and kept it under wraps as long as possible, wasting valuable time that could have been used for other countries to prepare a response.
The World Health Organization is, evidently, taking the same tact and simply moving on without getting the answers from China needed for the scientific community to fully understand how COVID-19 came to be, then spread like wildfire.
Why anyone thinks it's worth treating the Chinese Communist Party with kid gloves when Xi Jinping is engaged in a genocide against religious minorities, oppresses all citizens by depriving them of basic human rights, and seeks to steal the world's intellectual property through espionage is beyond understanding.
President Biden and the WHO, however, don't seem to care that China is again getting away with murder.