On April 30, the CCP issued an official statement titled "China's Actions and Position on COVID-19 Prevention, Control, and Virus Tracing," claiming that "a large body of evidence" shows the source of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) may lie in the United States. The statement accused the Trump administration of claiming the virus leaked from a Wuhan laboratory in an attempt to "shift the blame."
As a virologist who has closely followed the development of COVID-19 (the CCP virus) and related research, I would like to offer a scientific and objective analysis of the issues raised in the CCP's statement.
1. The CCP State Council's recent statement cannot deny the existence of laboratory safety lapses, accidents, or potential vulnerabilities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and/or other related institutions. Instead, it chose to ignore these issues entirely, not mentioning them at all in the statement. Nor did it respond to key evidence cited by the White House in support of the Wuhan lab-leak theory, including the following:
1) the unusual biological features of the virus's genetic sequence;
2) the virus having been introduced into humans only once;
3) inadequate biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology;
4) reports that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019.
2. Another key point in the White House statement on the lab-leak theory is this: "From almost every scientific standpoint, if there were evidence of a natural origin, it would have surfaced long ago — but it has not." Over the past five years, the CCP has consistently denied the possibility of a lab leak, instead arguing that various animals such as pangolins were potential intermediate hosts. The CCP State Council's latest official statement clearly signals a shift — from denying the lab-leak theory to now making a targeted political move, attempting to pin the origin of the pandemic on the United States.
3. The CCP's recent statement also fails to mention its deliberate cover-up of the truth about the outbreak in late 2019 and January 2020, and its censorship and punishment of Chinese doctors who tried to expose it. Nor does the statement explain why, even though Wuhan was clearly affected by the outbreak, the CCP allowed residents to travel abroad while restricting domestic travel. This latest statement makes clear that the CCP can no longer deny the role it played in facilitating the global spread of COVID-19.
4. Regarding the U.S. virus-leak incident mentioned in the CCP's statement, we must recognize that research projects involving specific agents and toxins inherently carry significant risk. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and military medical research institutions have never claimed their safety protocols are flawless. Even with routine inspections, violations of protocol and safety issues still occur. Such incidents have been reported by U.S. media and are known to the public. For example, U.S. media extensively reported on the 2019 closure of the Fort Detrick biological laboratory, an incident the CCP regime emphasized in its statement.
A local ABC television affiliate reported in detail on safety lapses observed at the facility:
(a) The CDC reported that an individual entered a room multiple times without the necessary respiratory protection while others in the room were performing surgery on non-human primates on a necropsy table.
(b) According to the CDC report, the laboratory failed to ensure that staff received proper training when handling toxins and specific agents.
(c) The CDC reported an incident in which a worker handled biohazardous waste without wearing gloves.
(d) The CDC noted that the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases "systemically failed to ensure the implementation of biosafety and containment procedures commensurate with the risks associated with handling specific agents and toxins."
(e) The CDC report noted that the laboratory failed to prevent unauthorized access to specific agents. It noted that personal protective equipment used to decontaminate items contaminated with specific agents was stored in open biohazard bags, and that an area of the facility had been renovated by the CDC for safety reasons.
Thus, although some details were withheld for reasons of national security, the American public was clearly not left entirely in the dark about this incident. By contrast, when it came to the spread of COVID-19, the CCP engaged in total denial and cover-up, censored traditional and social media, and arranged for a so-called field investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) that was manipulated by the CCP. Moreover, no independent body has ever been permitted to obtain the critical raw data and original samples collected in Wuhan.
5. The CCP is actively pushing the narrative that COVID-19 originated in the United States. This tactic is nothing new — the CCP has repeated the same accusation through official media such as the Global Times ever since the pandemic began. However, this accusation lacks scientific basis. For example, the CCP cited a U.S. CDC report that found SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies in blood samples collected between December 2019 and January 2020, including 7,389 blood samples collected by the American Red Cross from routine blood donations.
However, these samples were not from patients with respiratory symptoms. Although the study found that 106 samples reacted in a pan-immunoglobulin (pan-Ig) assay, there is no conclusive evidence that these samples contained anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, since antibodies against common coronaviruses can cross-react with SARS-CoV-2 antigens. The report's authors also noted that these samples were not "true positives," since there was no accompanying SARS-CoV-2 antigen molecular testing data for them.
Other countries, such as Italy, have issued similar reports, with serological testing of blood samples collected in 2019 suggesting the virus may have entered those countries earlier. However, neither the United States nor other countries experienced any small-scale COVID-19 outbreaks or clusters of cases in 2019. The global consensus therefore remains that the true outbreak of COVID-19 began in China in 2019, specifically in Wuhan.
6. The ultimate purpose of the CCP's recent statement is to avoid accountability for its role in the global spread of COVID-19, which evolved into a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives.
The White House's recent statement on the true origins of COVID-19 marks a turning point, showing that the United States is taking the matter seriously and is committed to holding the CCP accountable, rather than becoming mired in endless debate over the virus's origin. The CCP is deeply fearful of this U.S. approach and is scrambling to divert international attention, refocusing on the virus's origin and calling for a new round of investigations centered on the United States. This is yet another cognitive-warfare tactic employed by the CCP as it faces global isolation and pressure, particularly during the trade war. In Chinese, this is called "muddying the waters" — the goal is to create confusion. The United States and the international community should continue to firmly hold the CCP accountable, without paying heed to these tired rhetorical tricks.