Politico | ‘The virus is winning’: China’s rebuff of WHO’s new coronavirus investigation alarms experts
- Experts say a complete investigation inside China is necessary to pinpoint the origins of the virus, which has had a devastating toll around the world
- The denial of access to Wuhan deepens suspicion the Chinese government is attempting to cover up the possibility that the virus was intentionally engineered
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Phelim Kine, Carmen Paun and Ryan Heath on politico.com on July 25, 2021.
And experts told Politico that the denial of access to Wuhan, the original epicentre of the virus outbreak, deepens growing suspicion the Chinese government is attempting to cover up the possibility that the virus was intentionally engineered.
“We have had already two coronavirus pandemics come out of China and it’s more likely than not will that we will have another coronavirus pandemic come out of China, so [a China-based inquiry] is our best chance to get our hands around how this gets out of bats and into humans,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “We can’t do this without going to China. There is no way you can get to the bottom of this from 5000 miles away.”
