Urging the international community to demand transparency from China about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the US has accused Beijing of “obstructing” a World Health Organisation (WHO) probe into the origin of the deadly virus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and “peddling” questionable vaccines one year after the disease broke out.
The US leads the world with over 17,442,100 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 313,000 deaths.
“Even today, nearly a year after the world first learned of the outbreak, the Chinese Communist Party is still spreading disinformation regarding the virus and obstructing a WHO investigation into its origin and spread,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday.
“It is also peddling vaccines that lack essential data on safety and efficacy, due to a fundamental disregard for transparency and accountability regarding results from clinical trials. Both actions put Chinese citizens, and the world, at risk,” he said.
Mr Pompeo said nations of the world should demand transparency from Beijing about the origin and spread of the pandemic that has led to more than one million lives lost and millions of livelihoods ruined. If they do not do so, China’s record of public-health crises makes another future pandemic originating from China depressingly likely.
“It has now been a year since China first identified a patient in Wuhan stricken with an unknown pneumonia, now known as COVID-19. Since then, the US and other free nations, such as Germany and the UK, have led a remarkable and unprecedented vaccine development effort that is delivering hope across the world,” he said.
The US on Friday authorised the emergency use of the anti-coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna, a week after the one co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech received a similar approval.
Mr Pompeo said the pandemic is “no accident”.
“Time and again, democracies that value transparency, the rule of law, property rights, and free-market capitalism have produced innovative solutions to public health crises…In contrast, authoritarian regimes control information and stifle innovation,” he said.
China punished brave Chinese scientists, doctors and journalists who tried to alert the world to the dangers of the spreading virus, allowing a controllable outbreak to become a global pandemic, Mr Pompeo alleged.
