Photographer: Go Nakamura / Getty Images
Photographer: Go Nakamura / Getty Images
The State Department said on Friday that it had new information that the Kovid-19 pandemic could be indicated by a Chinese laboratory and not through contact with infected animals, putting pressure on Beijing over the virus’s origins in the Trump administration’s latest salvo Can be done for
Specifically, the US said it had obtained new evidence that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had become ill in the fall of 2019, with the first identified case of an outbreak in the surrounding city, with symptoms. Gone were Kovid-19s. Or common seasonal diseases.
The department said China’s transparency about the origins of the epidemic has been lacking for more than a year, as well as efforts to mask early deficiencies in the country’s response to the outbreak made it difficult to draw clear conclusions. But the brief, unsigned statement issued by the US less than a week before the end of the Trump administration – provides no data to support these claims.
“The virus can emerge naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic,” according to the State Department. “Alternatively, a laboratory accident may resemble a natural outbreak if only a few individuals were involved in the initial demonstration and were complicated by asymptomatic infection.”
A State Department spokesman declined to be asked for a detailed comment.
China has repeatedly denied allegations that the virus may have originated from the laboratory. The US did not reveal how it obtained new information about the diseases in the laboratory.
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The State Department’s fact sheet noted that China is facing criticism for preventing some members of the World Health Organization mission from entering China as part of an effort to trace the origins of Kovid-19. Screening. While the experts were eventually approved, China had already criticized the WHO for delaying the mission’s plans to travel the country.
China has been under investigation since the outbreak in and around Wuhan, but the Trump administration sought to place more blame on officials in Beijing, as the epidemic began in the US and deaths rose. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo often call the disease “China virus”, “China plague” and “Wuhan virus”.
For its part, China is conducting a campaign to suspect viruses originating within its borders. State media has conducted research suggesting that there were cases in Italy and the US that pre-date those in Wuhan, and indicated that the pathogen could have entered the country through frozen food or packaging.
It was announced on Friday that 2 million people died worldwide due to the death of about 400,000 people in the US
.