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Lab Rats

“Given China’s coverup of the outbreak in Wuhan, the WHO’s early praise for the country’s response and the fact that it took a full year to get a joint Chinese-​international team on the ground for a brief visit,” explained The Washington Post, “the critical but challenging search for clues faced skepticism from the start.”

“Skepticism” is a kind reaction to the just-​released World Health Organization report on the origin of COVID-19’s transmission to humans. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed CNN that “the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.” Though “foreign scientists on the trip took pains to praise their Chinese counterparts,” The Post noted, “They also acknowledged the limits of working with data collected before they arrived that may or may not be complete.”

Reuters reported yesterday that “Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic,” according to a statement from none other than WHO Director-​General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Yet, even acknowledging that the WHO report is based on highly questionable and woefully incomplete data, our major media continue to amplify the message that it is “extremely unlikely” the virus passed to humans through a Wuhan lab. 

So suggested a BBC story when international scientists went to China last month: “after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they have closed the lid on a controversial theory.”

Why controversial? It would place further blame on China.

The possibility of a lab accident was raised a year ago, including here, but the media has seemed incurious. Now, with the newly released report, the unlikeliness of a lab breach is again a theme. 

But there has been no real investigation. 

The Post points out that the scientists who visited “got a tour of the facility, heard about the lab’s rigorous safety protocols and were told the lab was not working with viruses close to SARS-​CoV‑2.” 

Meanwhile, two new tidbits have emerged: (a) “One member of the team said in a post-​trip television interview that researchers at the [Wuhan Institute for Virology] lab were sick in the fall of 2019,” and (b) the final WHO report disclosed that a different lab, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control, moved on Dec. 2, 2019.

“I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory,” Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist and former CDC director, said over the weekend, “you know, escaped.”

It’s almost as if COVID-19’s origin is the one thing we’re not supposed to uncover.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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WHO Don’t You Love?

“It leaves Americans sick,” tweeted Sen. Robert Menendez, the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, “and America alone.”

Feeling lonely? 

The Trump administration has officially informed both the United Nations and Congress that the U.S. will withdraw from the World Health Organization effective July 6, 2021. 

“China has total control over the World Health Organization,” the president asserted, and covered up critical information about COVID-​19, thereby enabling a very deadly worldwide pandemic.

And did so with the WHO’s help, he argues.

“Elements of Trump’s critique have resonated well beyond the White House,” notes the virulently anti-​Trump Washington Post. “Foreign governments and current WHO advisers have questioned why the WHO amplified false Chinese claims in the early days of the outbreak and repeatedly praised Beijing as the virus spread.”

Back in April, President Trump demanded the WHO agree to “substantive improvements” within 30 days. “We will be terminating our relationship,” Trump announced a month later, “and directing those funds” to other global health efforts. This week, it was made official.

Funds? The U.S. is the largest donor nation, providing 15 percent of the WHO budget — more than $400 million in 2019. The BBC reports, “The withdrawal will call into question the WHO’s financial viability.”

Of course, many Democrats, global health experts, and editorial pages attacked the move as “dangerous,” “likely to cost lives” and lead to a loss of U.S. “influence.”*

Influence

Those running the United Nations or its agencies cannot now ignore U.S. complaints. 

The threat of funding cuts? 

No longer are they mere bluster only for show.

Mr. Trump may feel lonesome … what other U.S. president would buck** the establishment to stop our tax dollars from flowing to an unaccountable U.N. agency? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* “On my first day as President,” Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden pledged on Twitter, “I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

** Some have disputed the president’s constitutional authority to unilaterally withdraw from the WHO. “[T]he U.S. joined the WHO via a joint resolution rather than through the mechanism set out in the Constitution’s Treaty Clause, it is what is sometimes termed an ex post congressional-​executive agreement,” explains University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Jean Galbraith. “Presidents have withdrawn the U.S. from such agreements on a few prior occasions.”

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