China says it’s been ‘open and transparent’ on COVID-19 origins

China had “shared the most data and research results on virus tracing and made important contributions to global virus tracing research”, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning Mao advised reporters at a day by day briefing.

“Politicising the issue of virus tracing will not smear China but will only damage the US’s own credibility,” Mao mentioned, in response to complaints from US officers and members of Congress that China has not been completely cooperative.

Her feedback got here amid persevering with questions on how the virus that has killed greater than 6.8 million folks worldwide first emerged.

Others within the US intelligence group disagree, citing differing opinions inside the authorities.

“There is just not an intelligence community consensus,” John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, mentioned on Monday.

A low confidence evaluation usually signifies that the data obtained just isn’t dependable sufficient or too fragmented to make a extra definitive analytic judgment or that there’s not sufficient data accessible to attract a extra strong conclusion.

The newest evaluation additional provides to the divide within the US authorities over whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic started in China in 2019 as the results of a lab leak or whether or not it emerged naturally.

The numerous intelligence businesses have been cut up on the matter for years.

In 2021, the intelligence group declassified a report that confirmed 4 businesses within the intelligence group had assessed with low confidence that the virus possible jumped from animals to people naturally within the wild, whereas one assessed with reasonable confidence that the pandemic was the results of a laboratory accident.

Three different intelligence group parts have been unable to coalesce round both rationalization with out further data, the report mentioned.

The US Energy Department’s conclusion was first reported over the weekend within the Wall Street Journal, which mentioned the categorized report was based mostly on new intelligence and famous in an replace to a 2021 doc. The DOE oversees a nationwide community of labs within the US.

White House officers on Monday declined to verify press stories in regards to the evaluation.