China holds the key to understanding the origins of Covid-19, the WHO chief now also says. And Schwab’s World Economic Forum (WEF) arrives in Beijing and ignores it
The Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico explained: “Awe is the daughter of ignorance and the greater the admired effect, the more proportionately the wonder grows”.
In these hours the director general of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged China to share its insights into the origins of COVID-19: “If they did, then we’ll know what happened or how it started.”
from the WEF website
To those who asked him for clarity on the origin of the virus, Ghebreyesus confirmed: “Without full access to the information available to China, one cannot say this or that”. A clear change of position compared to the past, when he praised Beijing for transparency.
Ghebreyesus: “All hypotheses are on the table. This is the position of the WHO and this is why we asked China … to cooperate”. From the series: China it has information that would allow the world to understand the origin of Covid, also to be able to prevent other pandemics, but it does not share it.
In these hours, the last scaffolding that held up the hypothesis of raccoon dogs, who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, as probable “transmitters” of the disease to humans, has also fallen.
In a study (without peer review) published this week by the journal Nature, scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention disputed the findings of the international team that supported the “raccoons” thesis.
The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, with many suspecting it had spread at a live animal market before spreading worldwide and killing nearly 7 million people.
Data on the first days of the Covid pandemic were uploaded by Chinese scientists into an international database last month. But the published DNAs of multiple animal species were not followed by actual evidence showing that the animals were indeed infected. Animal samples were also taken one month after the virus spread to humans. So even if they had been positive for Covid, the animals could have contracted the virus from humans and not the other way around.
WHO is working with scientists to find out more about the first Covid cases of 2019, as well as where the first infected people are located.
Meanwhile, the WHO technical manager for Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, confirmed Ghebreyesus’ words to the international press: the latest Chinese information has offered some “clues” about the origins but no answers. The WHO has also requested more detailed information from the US Department of Energy which in a recent study supported the hypothesis of a leak from one of the Chinese laboratories as the most likely option on the origin of the virus.
However, the Western media seem to have removed the issue, with a blanket of silence descending on China. Better yet, from 27 to 29 June in Tianjina Chinese city of 13 million inhabitants will host the next meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) of Klaus Schwab and company, the so-called “Summer Davos”.
“The global economy is in a crucial moment of transformation”, states the WEF on its website, “established business and industrial models have not only been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, but are now being challenged by a more competitive geopolitical and geoeconomic environment”.
“The Meeting will bring together beyond 1,500 global leaders”, he writes again, “from business, government, civil society, international organizations, as well as innovators and academics, at a crucial moment for the global economic recovery”. Too bad the summit removed the uncomfortable questions addressed to China.
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