Chinese ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong has accused the US government of misleading the world about the origins of the deadly coronavirus.
He says the US has chosen to politicise the pandemic instead of finding a solution to deal with it.
Over four million people have succumbed to COVID-19 related complications since December 2019.
China’s Wuhan province has been cited as the origin of the pandemic.
Xiaodong addressed the media virtually.
“Some US politicians are obsessed with stigmatizing the virus by associating it with certain countries and places. Those politicians also attempted and pressured WHO into conducting the so-called phase two investigation into China. In the main contact tracing they should have been best on science than US attempt to cloud evidence to incriminate China,” explains Xiaodong.
In February, the head of the expert group on the coronavirus outbreak at China’s National Health Commission, Liang Wannian, said there was no concrete evidence indicating how the coronavirus entered the Huanan seafood market in the city of Wuhan.
A team from the WHO, searching for clues about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, spent nearly a month in Wuhan where the disease was first identified.
Chen has cautioned the US government to focus more on ending the pandemic instead of apportioning blame to China as well as pressurising the WHO on its investigations.
“The US has always put out and is adamant in holding China accountable and that China needs to pay for it. Essentially they wanted to cover up their failure. They gathered evidence against China so as to serve their own selfish interest.”
US yet to respond to China’s allegations
Despite being fingered as the COVID-19 tracing origin, China only lost just over 4 000 lives to COVID-19 related infections, out of less than 100 000 confirmed cases, while America suffered a major blow with more than 6 00 000 of its citizens having succumbed to the coronavirus. The US has had over 38 million COVID-19 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, the US embassy in Pretoria says it will only respond to China’s allegations at a later stage, while the WHO representative in the region says they’re yet to look at China’s latest statement.
No concrete evidence on the origin of the virus: Patrick Fok
