World needs multifaceted COVID-19 origin tracing

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization and major countries around the world have been working on origin tracing for COVID-19 in the process of combating the epidemic. The investigation report released by the WHO at the end of March and completed by the China-WHO Joint Expert Group on the tracing of novel coronavirus can be regarded as an early achievement, laying the foundation for human society to further explore the origin.

At the same time, the United States has not only failed to actively fight the epidemic, but also gathered some countries to make an issue of the coronavirus origin tracing work, trying to use it as an excuse to apply “presumption of guilt” and "label" other countries. However, it is the shared responsibility of all countries in the world to trace the origin of the virus, and it is necessary for all countries, especially the major ones, to work together following scientific principles in order to determine the origin of the virus and find a solution, so that human society can get rid of the threat of COVID-19 and similar viruses as soon as possible.

Firstly, the origin tracing work is a shared responsibility of all countries in the world and requires cooperation and joint response from all countries. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there have been a total of 190 million confirmed cases with more than 4 million deaths globally documented, affecting almost the entire world. All countries in the world are in the same boat when it comes to the pandemic, and no country can stand alone or be a spectator. In response, many dignitaries, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have argued that the international community needs to work together to respond to the enormous challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic. Although the emergence of the novel coronavirus vaccines has greatly enhanced humanity's ability to respond to the pandemic, there still are such challenges as the overall shortage and uneven distribution of vaccines as well as the constant mutation of the virus. Against this backdrop, only by tracing the exact origin of the novel coronavirus can countries around the world truly find the best way to fight the virus and lay a solid foundation for completely defeating COVID-19 and similar viruses.

Although China was the first to report COVID-19 cases, numerous scientific studies have found that the virus was already present in many parts of the world before it was reported in China. For example, when two laboratories in Italy and the Netherlands recently re-tested a small number of blood samples taken before the outbreak of novel coronavirus, they found antibodies normally found in people infected with COVID-19, and the presence of these antibodies in samples first collected in the first week of October 2019 suggests that the people from whom the samples were taken were likely infected with the novel coronavirus in September 2019. Therefore, to trace the novel coronavirus, it is necessary to trace the virus in multiple locations around the world, rather than just in China. And it is necessary for countries to work together. Otherwise, it may not be possible to find the exact origin of the novel coronavirus. In this process, it is clear that those big countries with strong economies and advanced technologies should take on a greater responsibility and behave like a big country.

Secondly, the purpose of virus tracing is to find the origin of the virus, not to "convict" other countries. In the face of the pandemic, the main reason for the international community to trace the origin of the virus is to find the exact origin of Covid-19, so as to lay the foundation for eradicating the novel coronavirus disease quickly. Meanwhile finding and scientifically researching the source of the novel coronavirus will also help humanity to improve its ability to deal with large-scale infectious diseases, and help humanity to better prevent and deal with similar viruses. The importance and necessity of origin tracing work is undeniable. At the same time, if we politicize the tracing of viruses, make a fuss about the speculation that "the virus came from a Chinese laboratory" without any real evidence, make "presumption of guilt" against other countries based on speculation alone, and "throw dirty water" on other countries , it is obviously not conducive to the early identification of the origin of the virus.

However, although the United States has strong economic and scientific strengths, it has no intention to find the real origin of the coronavirus. Instead, it tries to use the origin tracing work for its own selfish purposes, using it as a tool to suppress public opinion and diplomacy against other countries. Although the coronavirus is horrible, the artificially created "political virus" is just like an accomplice to it, and if it is allowed to spread without restraint, it may help to bring more disasters to humanity. As Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said, COVID-19 origin tracing aims at a better future, rather than targeting or blaming certain countries, and Portugal supports research that defends science and professionalism and opposes any politicization of this kind of work. Therefore, the only way to find the true origin of the novel coronavirus is to remove the "tinted glasses", abandon the selfishness of using the virus to suppress other countries, and devote resources and efforts to the tracing work, so that humanity can be relieved of the pain it caused.

Thirdly, virus tracing needs to adhere to scientific principles and can only be done by scientists. Both the pathological analysis of infected cases and the tracing of the novel coronavirus are scientific issues and technical work, which should obviously be done by professional scientists or medical experts.

However, in the process of origin tracing, some people in the US have thrown scientific principles out of the window. On one hand, they deny the WHO-China joint study report on origins-tracing. The expert group, led by WHO, was composed of scientists from multiple countries, including epidemiologists and zoologists from the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, Russia, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Qatar and other countries. These experts reached their conclusions after four weeks of joint research, through field visits, exchanges and data analysis, reflecting the rigorous, authoritative and scientific nature of the investigation, and laying the foundation for finally discovering the origin of the novel coronavirus. Such a rigorous investigation report has been subject to unfounded accusations by some countries, and the work of the expert group has been discredited as "non-transparent" and "non-independent".

On the other hand, intelligence agencies, not scientists, were allowed to trace the virus to its origin. Some people in the US, were frustrated that they could not find real evidence to incriminate other countries and that they could not "convict" other countries by legitimate and scientific means, they have instead asked their own intelligence agencies to trace the origin of the virus and insist that their own intelligence agencies found evidence to prove that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory. Obviously, this is tantamount to milking the bull. Even if the relevant intelligence agencies eventually produce the so-called "evidence", like the small bottle containing an unknown substance in the hands of the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell before the Iraq war, how can anyone be convinced? At the same time, how can the origin of the virus be found with this kind of amateur-as-an-insider operation and this kind of tracing work that went off-topic from the very beginning?

The novel coronavirus pandemic is still raging and humanity is still suffering from it. Only by finding the exact origin of COVID-19, based on scientific principles, can humanity eradicate this virus and rid itself of its threat. This is a shared responsibility of the international community and a time to test the world's leading powers.

Contributed by Kang Yisheng

Translated by Wang Ruoxin