China Calls Claims That Coronavirus Originated In A Lab ‘Purely Fabricated’

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang speaks during the daily press briefing in Beijing on March 18, 2020. - China on March 18 announced it would expel American journalists from three major US newspapers in ... Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang speaks during the daily press briefing in Beijing on March 18, 2020. - China on March 18 announced it would expel American journalists from three major US newspapers in one of the communist government's biggest crackdowns on the foreign press, escalating a bitter row over media freedoms. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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BEIJING — China says any claims that the coronavirus was released from a laboratory are “unfounded and purely fabricated out of nothing.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Thursday the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the center of the allegations “does not have the ability to design and create a new coronavirus, and it has never done so.”

Geng cited the institute’s director, Yuan Zhiming, as saying the lab strictly implements bio-security procedures that would prevent the release of any pathogen.

“I would like to point out again that the origin of the virus is a complex scientific issue, and it should be studied by scientists and professionals,” Geng said.

Geng also criticized U.S. politicians who have suggested China should be held accountable for the global pandemic, saying they should spend their time on “better controlling the epidemic situation at home.”

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Notable Replies

  1. It’s hard to know who to believe here. On one side there’s a lying autocratic regime and on the other there’s China.

  2. How about believing a widely respected scientist who made her lab re-examine the gene sequences, sent samples to another lab to do the same, and published the results showing the the virus could not have come from the lab work, knowing that any fakery would get caught by peer review? Jim White at emptywheel has been covering it: Shi Zhengli Provides Proof SARS CoV-2 Was Not An Accidental Release From Wuhan Institute of Virology - emptywheel

  3. Hmmmmm…wouldn’t it be funny if the Chinese get all pissed off and decide to take some revenge? You know, like retract all of Ivankadonk’s patents to get even? And publish all Donnie’s financials on the massive loan at Bank of China? Or maybe they call the loan in, payable cash-only…

  4. Facts. Pffft. You can use them to prove anything.

  5. ODNI says covid-19 not manmade or genetifcally modified. Deep state vs. derp state:

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