WHO says Pompeo remarks on virus origin 'speculative', seeks data

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WHO says Pompeo remarks on virus origin 'speculative', seeks data

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Monday that comments by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo citing “evidence” that the new coronavirus had emerged from a Chinese laboratory were “speculative”, and called for a science-based inquiry.

 

Pompeo said on Sunday there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the virus emerged from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that it was not man-made.

 

Dr Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies expert, told an online press conference from Geneva:

 

“We have not received any data-specific evidence from the U.S. government relating to the purported origin of the virus. So from our perspective, this remains speculative.”

 

As an “evidence-based organisation”, Ryan said, the WHO was keen to receive any information on the origin of the virus, as this was “exceptionally important” for its future control.

 

“So if that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared,” he said.

 

Scientists have advised the WHO that genome sequencing shows the virus to be of “natural origin”.

 

Ryan said science, not politics, should be at the heart of exchanges with Chinese scientists on the issue, warning against projecting an “aggressive investigation of wrongdoing”.

 

The virus is believed to have originated in bats and jumped to humans via another species. Dr Maria van Kerkhove, a WHO specialist in viruses that make such jumps, said it was important to determine this intermediate host.

 

As countries begin easing lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the virus, many hope to contain new clusters of infection through systematic contact tracing, helped by mobile phone apps and other technology.

 

But Ryan said these did not make more traditional “boots-on-the-ground” surveillance redundant.

 

“We are very, very keen to stress that IT tools do not replace the basic public health workforce that is going to be needed to trace, test, isolate and quarantine,” he said, praising South Korea and Singapore for their strategy.

 

Ryan said the WHO welcomed recent clinical trial data for Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral drug remdesivir, saying there were “signals of hope” for a potential use against COVID-19.

 

“We will be engaging in discussions with Gilead and the U.S. government as to how this drug may be made more widely available as further data emerges on its effectiveness,” he said.

 

Steven Solomon, the WHO’s principal legal officer, said two countries had proposed consideration of letting Taiwan attend the WHO’s May 18-19 annual health assembly as an observer.

 

Solomon said the WHO recognised the People’s Republic of China as the “one legitimate representative of China”, in keeping with U.N. policy since 1971, and that the question of Taiwan’s attendance was one for the WHO’s 194 member states.

 

China, which views the island as a wayward Chinese province and not a country, says it represents Taiwan adequately in the WHO.

 

Reuters

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Column: The White House plays dumb on the pandemic's China connection

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo at a State Department news conference April 29, 2020. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press )

The future is particularly murky these days. It’s anybody’s guess how the pandemic, the presidential election and the economy are going to play out. Just about the only thing that’s assured is that U.S. relations with China will never be the same.

 

Businesses are radically rethinking their supply chains and whether you call the rest of us voters or consumers, attitudes toward China are souring. A recent Harris poll found that two-thirds of Democrats and 9 out of 10 Republicans hold China responsible for the spread of the coronavirus. Already, a slew of lawsuits have been leveled against the Chinese government. The West’s political orientation toward China is shifting too, as countries around the world increasingly point fingers at Beijing.

 

In short, the issue isn’t whether a China-U.S. reckoning is coming, only whether we’re smart or dumb about it.

 

Early on, the knee-jerk response from Democrats, the World Health Organization, much of the media and the Chinese government itself, was to claim that any criticism of the Chinese government’s actions was bigoted or xenophobic.

 

On the merits, this is ridiculous. The Chinese government is a cruel and oppressive regime. Its refusal to be transparent and cooperative with the international community has been outrageous, and it’s not bigoted to say so. But the CCP, the Communist Party of China, is not "the Chinese” or even “China,” and blanket-blaming a whole nation and its people for a pandemic makes no sense. It’s as dumb, in other words, as stipulating that any negative word about Beijing is xenophobic.

 

The current debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is another excellent example of how dumb we can be about criticizing China. The claim that the virus originated in a Chinese lab is not synonymous with the deranged conspiracy theory that the Chinese created the virus and purposefully unleashed it.

 

There is no evidence that the virus is man-made; scientists would be able to tell with genetic sequencing. Nor is it plausible that China’s interests would be served by the deliberate release on its own soil. A more credible — but unproven — theory is that the Chinese were studying the virus and it could have been accidentally released. Or it may also have emerged “naturally,” as the Chinese government contends, from a Wuhan meat market.

 

As the question of where the virus came from has heated up, Republican China hawks, in and out of the administration, rarely volunteer that they don’t mean “man-made” when they say “originated.” And much of the media coverage similarly ignores or downplays this distinction. Some pro-Trump media personalities seem eager to fuel anti-Chinese sentiments while the anti-Trump crowd seem to prefer to see a more mockable conspiracy theory.

 

This mutually beneficial ambiguity gets a boost from the Trump administration’s vacillation over how much blame it wants to assign to China and how it wants to direct it, all with an eye toward riling up its base and distracting from its early missteps in combating the pandemic.

On the one hand, President Trump values his personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and covets a major trade deal with him. Trump is on the record praising Xi’s coronavirus leadership and he remains reluctant to criticize Xi directly. On the other hand, the president and many of his advisors and surrogates relish having a new evil empire to galvanize support around.

 

(The schizophrenic nature of all this is ironically analogous to conservative criticism of the Trump administration. A slew of pro-Trump politicians and media figures are sharply critical of the administration’s response to the pandemic while simultaneously refusing to criticize Trump. The result is heated talk of states needing to be “liberated” from governors following the president’s guidelines and presidential advisors being scapegoated for presidential decisions.)

 

The ambiguity about China's misdeeds was on display during the Sunday talk shows.

 

When Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo told ABC’s Martha Raddatz that “China has a history of infecting the world,” Raddatz admirably asked, “Do you believe it was man-made or genetically modified?” Pompeo replied, “Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point.” After Raddatz, again admirably, pointed out that the exact opposite is the case, that experts including the U.S. intelligence community believe it is not man-made, Pompeo said, “That’s right, I agree with that.” Then he went on to make a defensible case against the Chinese government, never mentioning Xi by name.

 

It’s surely possible he merely misspoke. But his dancing back and forth between dumb and smart was at minimum symbolic of an administration that wants to have it both ways.

 

Anger at Xi’s government is warranted, as is a recalibration of our relationship with China in the long aftermath of the pandemic. But treating a nuclear and economic superpower as an existential enemy primarily to satisfy domestic political needs — during an economic and public health crisis — strikes me as the dumbest way to go.

 

Yahoo News

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Top U.S. general: 'We don't know' if coronavirus emerged from Chinese lab

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. general said on Tuesday it was still unknown whether the coronavirus emerged from a wet market in China, a laboratory or some other location, but reaffirmed the U.S. view that it was probably not man-made.

 

“Did it come out of the virology lab in Wuhan? Did it occur in a wet market there in Wuhan? Did it occur somewhere else? And the answer to that is: We don’t know,” Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference, adding the U.S. government was looking into it.

 

The remarks stood in contrast to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assessment on Sunday that there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

 

Reuters

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Pompeo says the US can't be certain coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab

 

Washington (CNN)Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US does not have certainty about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, despite claiming over the weekend there was "enormous evidence" the virus originated in a Chinese lab.

 

Although he conceded he couldn't be certain, Pompeo continued to push his lab claim, countering the leading theory among intelligence experts and international analysts that the virus came into human contact at a wet market. The US intelligence community has said it is looking into both possibilities.

 

Pompeo also insisted there was no contradiction between his position and comments by other senior US officials who have cast doubt on his theory.

 

"We don't have certainty," Pompeo said at a press conference at the State Department Wednesday. "And there is significant evidence that this came from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true. I've made them both. Administration officials have made them. They're all true," he said.

 

Pompeo claimed there was "no separation" in the disparate answers from himself, top US military officials, Five Eyes officials, and the intelligence community. The intelligence community "is still figuring out precisely where this virus began," Pompeo said.

 

"We're all trying to figure out the right answer. We're all trying to get to clarity," he said. "There are different levels of certainty assessed at different places. That's highly appropriate. People stare at data sets and come to different levels of confidence. Every one of us stares at this and knows the reality. The reality of this came from Wuhan."

 

On a Sunday appearance on ABC's "This Week," Pompeo asserted that "there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

 

Asked about that claim on Wednesday, the top US diplomat did not offer corroboration.

 

Pompeo has maintained an aggressive line of attack on China's handling of the virus as the Trump administration looks to deflect blame for its response to the disease that has now killed around 70,000 Americans and stalled the economy in the crucial months before the presidential election.

 

Multiple US experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, have cast doubt on the theory that the virus originated in a lab. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, said Monday that evidence the virus began in a lab is "inconclusive."

 

An April 30 statement by the US intelligence community said it "concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified," but continues to investigate "whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

Intelligence assessments circulated among the US' closest allies indicate, however, that it is "highly unlikely" the coronavirus outbreak is the result of a laboratory accident, according to two Western officials who said a shared intelligence assessment points to origins in a Chinese market.

 

This story is breaking and will be updated.

 

CNN