A leak in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan could well be the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is in any case the “most plausible” hypothesis, according to a commission of the American Congress.
A small step for health… and a big step for the geopolitical quarrel between China and the United States. A commission of elected officials in the American Congress concluded in a report on the coronavirus pandemic that the most likely origin of Covid-19 was the escape of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory.
“This work will help the United States, and the world, predict, prepare for, protect against, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic,” said commission chairman L. Republican elected official and professional podiatrist Brad Wenstrup. The report boasts of a “consensus” between Democratic and Republican members on several questions, in particular on the fact that “the possibility that Covid-19 emerged from an accident linked to a laboratory or research is not a conspiracy theory.
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The bat always suspicious
To support their assertion, the elected officials put forward five reasons, including, according to them, the fact that “the virus has a biological characteristic not present in nature”. It is true that the city of Wuhan has numerous virology laboratories and that the international scientific community has not yet managed to determine with certainty the origin of Covid-19.
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The famous pangolin thesis has been undermined, but a study published in September in the journal Cell provided new elements to reinforce the hypothesis of transmission to humans by infected animals introduced into a market in Wuhan at the end of 2019 – mainly bats. American intelligence also assured in a June 2023 report that it had no evidence indicating that Covid-19 had been created in a laboratory in China.
The United States the most fatally affected country
Why is the issue so important in the United States? Back at the White House, Donald Trump is aware that his erratic management of the Covid-19 pandemic had earned him – in part – his electoral defeat against Joe Biden. With more than 1.1 million deaths, the United States was the most fatally affected country. Blaming China, as he has done on several occasions, allows him to divert media attention.
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Beijing also brushed aside the conclusions of this report, judging that it had “no credibility” and accusing Washington of using the epidemic to carry out “political manipulation”. “The authoritative scientific conclusion drawn by the China-WHO joint expert team […] is that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a regular news conference. “In the absence of any substantial evidence, the so-called US report concocted the main conclusions, slandered China” and “introduced false evidence,” he said.
France
COVID-19
