by Joseph Klein
Another coverup in the offing?
More than a year after the coronavirus first emerged causing nearly 2 million deaths globally, the Communist Chinese regime finally decided to allow World Health Organization (WHO) scientists into the country to explore the possible origin of the coronavirus pandemic. “We are pleased that an international team of scientists – distinguished experts from 10 institutions and countries – are commencing their travel to China to engage in and review scientific research with their Chinese counterparts on the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” WHO’s Director-General Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros said. Tedros was complicit in facilitating China’s original coverup of where the virus originated and its human-to-human contagion.
The WHO team is expected to arrive in China on January 14th. There had been a temporary holdup due to visa issues, which were eventually cleared up. Even after their delayed arrival, the WHO scientists will have to first quarantine for two weeks.
We do not know whether the scientists will be permitted to even visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, from where it is believed by some experts that the virus was originally released. If they are permitted to visit, WHO’s scientists are not likely to be provided with unfettered access to the lab facilities, records, and past and present personnel. It will be like Iran’s denying unrestricted access to its military facilities by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors looking for evidence of possible nuclear weapons-related activities. In any case, the WHO team is arriving far too late to find anything of significance. Chinese authorities had more than a year to cover their tracks.
“The WHO would greatly benefit if the Chinese would give the experts unlimited access to people, data and locations,” said Ayelet Berman, an adjunct assistant professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. “But I doubt it’s going to be that simple.” The WHO team members will be accompanied by Chinese scientists, who will do double duty as minders.
Even if the Wuhan lab was not the source of the coronavirus, there is no question from which country the original virus – as opposed to the subsequent mutations – emerged. China is the source of the virus and of early disinformation about it. Even now, China’s leaders are trying to sow confusion. A Chinese senior diplomat, for example, is still claiming that unverified “studies” showed the virus emerged in other places. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson is calling on WHO to waste scarce resources in conducting origin tracing in multiple countries.
The World Health Organization is on board with China’s scattershot approach. WHO’s emergencies chief Mike Ryan is busy lowering expectations about what the World Health Organization team will find in China. “We are looking for the answers here that may save us in future - not culprits and not people to blame,” he said. According to Ryan, WHO would be willing to go “anywhere and everywhere” to find out the virus’s origins. When everyone is deemed “responsible” for something, then no one is held accountable.
Garrett Grisby of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services complained last November that WHO was not being transparent regarding WHO’s plans to visit China. “The (terms of reference) were not negotiated in a transparent way with all WHO member states,” he said. “Understanding the origins of COVID-19 through a transparent and inclusive investigation is what must be done.”
The names of candidates for WHO’s team were submitted to Beijing before being approved last November. The WHO team visiting China contains at least one member, zoologist Peter Daszak, who has already made up his mind in China’s favor before examining any evidence. Daszak claimed that the idea the virus could have leaked from the lab is a “conspiracy theory” that is “pure baloney.”
Daszak is the president of an organization known as the EcoHealth Alliance, which had previously been collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on “research” until the Trump administration cut off his organization’s funding last year.
Daszak believes that we all share the blame for the coronavirus because of the way we live. Daszak claimed that because of our consumer habits “we dominate every ecosystem on earth right now.” Instead of blaming “one country, versus another,” Daszak said, “we need to point the finger directly at ourselves, understand what’s going on and change it.” In other words, Daszak is not acting like an objective scientist who follows the evidence wherever it may lead. He is willing to let China off the hook for its gross negligence or worse, which it compounded with its campaign of misinformation.
No wonder the Trump administration cut off funding for Daszak’s collaboration with the Wuhan Institute. But now Daszak will be back in Wuhan as part of WHO’s “investigation” team.
WHO’s past deference to China does not inspire much confidence that WHO’s current mission to investigate the coronavirus’s origin will hold China to account.
Joseph Klein
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/who-sends-team-china-investigate-coronavirus-joseph-klein/
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