Coronavirus world: China slams US over ‘conspiracy’ virus probe, Facebook reverses lab theory ban
China has hit out at Joe Biden’s call for a deeper investigation into the origins of Covid-19 as Facebook backtracks on its ban on posts suggesting the virus was man-made.
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China hit out at the “dark history” of the US intelligence community on Thursday local time, after US President Joe Biden ordered a probe into the Covid-19 origins which threatens to set the course for relations between world’s top economies.
Washington is reviewing its diplomatic position with China on issues spanning trade, technological supremacy and rights, while it steps up efforts to hook Western democracies into a united diplomatic front against perceived Chinese aggression.
The countries’ trade envoys have held “candid” phone talks on the progress of a deal plotted as a pathway out of a trade war sparked by former President Donald Trump, which saw tariffs lumped on tens of billions of dollars of the rivals’ goods.
But on Wednesday, Mr Biden reopened a barely healed sore between the countries by ordering US intelligence agencies to report to him within 90 days on whether the Covid-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident.
The lab-leak theory, initially trotted out by Trump then dismissed as “highly unlikely” by a delayed World Health Organisation mission to China, has resurfaced in recent days, driven by Washington.
Mr Biden ordered the new review to determine “whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident”.
“The US Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” Mr Biden said in a statement.
“Here is their current position: ‘while two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter – each with low or moderate confidence – the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.’”
Mr Biden said he had ordered his national security Adviser, US laboratories and the intelligence community to deliver “a definitive conclusion” within 90 days.
“As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China,” he said.
China is intensely sensitive to allegations it could have done more to stop the spread of a pandemic that has gone on to kill well over 3.4 million people and has eviscerated economies since emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Beijing rejects the theory the virus may have emerged from a virology lab in Wuhan and has instead accused the US of peddling “conspiracies” and politicising the pandemic.
The Biden administration’s “motive and purposes are clear”, Zhao Lijian a ministry of foreign affairs spokesman said on Thursday, rejecting the need for a new investigation into the pandemic.
“The dark history of the US intelligence community has long been known to the world,” he added, referring to the US’ unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction which led to its invasion of Iraq.
Reviving the lab leak theory “is disrespectful to science … and also a disruption to the global fight against the pandemic”, Zhao said.
But the idea of virus release from a Wuhan lab is gaining increasing traction in the United States.
Citing a US intelligence report, The Wall Street Journal reported that a trio from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised with a seasonal illness in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak.
The natural origin hypothesis — backed as the most likely by the WHO expert team who visited China — holds that the virus emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species.
This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2.
FACEBOOK WON’T BAN LAB VIRUS THEORY
Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts suggesting Covid-19 was man-made, on the heels of renewed debate over the origins of the virus which first emerged in China.
The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday on its website, highlights the challenge of policing misinformation and disinformation on the world’s largest social network.
“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” the statement said.
“We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge.” The new statement updates guidance from Facebook in February when it said it would remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic killing more than three million.
The move followed Mr Biden’s directive to US intelligence agencies to investigate competing theories on how the virus first emerged — through animal contact at a market in Wuhan, China, or through accidental release from a research laboratory in the same city.
Mr Biden’s order signals an escalation in mounting controversy over the origins of the virus.
Facebook’s actions impact content posted by some 3.45 billion active users of its applications, including its core social network, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Facebook has relied largely on independent fact-checking groups, which up until now had widely dismissed the theory of a laboratory release.
One of these groups, PolitiFact, reported last September that public health authorities had “repeatedly said the coronavirus was not derived from a lab” but earlier this month revised its guidance, said “that assertion is now more widely disputed,” saying it would continue to review the matter.
Facebook in a separate statement said it was stepping up its efforts to curb misinformation by limiting the reach of users who “repeatedly” share false content.
Until now, Facebook had only taken this action on individual posts, but now will clamp down on the users who are the largest spreaders of false content.
NEW COVID VACCINES REACH FINAL TRIAL PHASE
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and Britain’s GSK announced Thursday local time the start of final tests of their belated Covid vaccine as they race to add their jab to the world’s arsenal against the pandemic.
The companies reported positive results from interim human trials earlier this month after a disappointing outcome from initial studies last year left France without its own vaccine, denting national pride.
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline on Thursday local time started enrolment for Phase 3 of a clinical study that will include more than 35,000 adult volunteers at sites in the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America, the firms said.
The companies hope to launch their vaccine by the end of 2021 — one year after Pfizer and Moderna jabs were approved by regulators.
The Phase 3 trial will initially investigate the vaccine’s efficacy against the original coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan, China and then look at its response to a variant found in South Africa.
Sanofi and GSK will also study their vaccine’s ability to work as a booster shot in people who had previously received another vaccine.
The Phase 2 trials already showed a strong immune response after a single shot in participants who had previously contracted the coronavirus.
“We have adapted our vaccine development strategy based on forward-looking considerations as the virus continues to evolve, as well as anticipating what may be needed in a post-pandemic setting,” Sanofi executive vice president Thomas Triomphe said in a statement.
Like most of the other jabs in circulation, the Sanofi-GSK vaccine would require two doses.
The firms are combining a Sanofi-developed antigen, which stimulates the production of germ-killing antibodies, with GSK’s adjuvant technology, a substance that bolsters the immune response triggered by a vaccine.
JOHNSON ‘UNFIT FOR JOB’
Meanwhile, Britain’s government “disastrously” failed the public by mishandling its coronavirus pandemic response, former top adviser Dominic Cummings told politicians on Wednesday (local time), calling Prime Minister Boris Johnson “unfit for the job”.
“Tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die,” Mr Cummings, an abrasive political strategist who masterminded Brexit, said in an excoriating account that blamed senior ministers and officials including himself for getting it wrong at the outset.
Mr Cummings said Mr Johnson was recklessly insouciant in the early days of the crisis in February 2020, even volunteering to get infected with Covid-19 live on television to show there was nothing to fear.
But he said that even after nearly dying himself from the virus weeks later, the prime minister declined to learn from mistakes and ignored scientists’ advice in September to introduce a second lockdown, leading to many more deaths over winter.
Covid-19 has claimed nearly 128,000 lives in Britain — the fifth-highest official death toll in the world, and the highest in Europe.
“The truth is that senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis,” Mr Cummings told a parliamentary committee.
He described political leadership during the crisis as “lions led by donkeys over and over again”.
“When the public needed us most the government failed,” he said, apologising “to all the families of those who died unnecessarily”.
In response, Johnson told parliament he took “full responsibility” but insisted decision-making during the pandemic had been “appallingly difficult” and the government “acted throughout with the intention to save life … in accordance with the best scientific advice.” The testimony of Mr Cummings, the brains behind the “Leave” campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum, was much anticipated after he began attacking Johnson’s coronavirus policies and financial dealings in recent weeks after quitting government in December.
During more than seven hours of testimony, he conceded “many, many institutions failed around the world” in their initial response to the crisis.
But he blasted senior UK officials and politicians for initially missing the seriousness of the situation, and once they did grasp it, of inept decision-making, comparing Mr Johnson’s approach to an out-of-control shopping trolley.
Mr Cummings said the Conservative leader initially branded coronavirus “a scare story”, was consumed by issues in his private life and too reluctant to impose a lockdown in March 2020 because of the economic impact.
He said officials were guilty of “catastrophic” groupthink, pursuing a haphazard strategy of so-called herd immunity before belatedly abandoning it when the likely death toll became clear.
Britain’s top civil servant even suggested to Johnson in mid-March last year that he encourage “chickenpox” gatherings to spread infections and build immunity, according to Mr Cummings.
Comparing officials’ eventual realisation of the situation to a scene in the movie “Independence Day” after an alien invasion, Mr Cummings said the deputy cabinet secretary conceded to him that “there is no plan, we’re in huge trouble”.
Mr Johnson grew more resistant to scientific advice, Mr Cummings said, confirming media reports that the British leader said he would rather let “bodies pile high” than lock down again later in 2020.
“His argument was ‘I should’ve been the mayor (in) ‘Jaws’ and kept the beaches open’ — that’s what he said on many, many occasions,” he said.
By the time Mr Johnson did order another lockdown in late October, Mr Cummings said their relationship had broken down. “I regarded him as unfit for the job,” he added.
Mr Cummings repeatedly singled out Health Secretary Matt Hancock for criticism, alleging he lied to colleagues on numerous occasions, including over pledges to test all elderly patients released from hospital back into care homes.
Mr Hancock wanted scientists to take the blame for failings and could have been fired for “at least 15 or 20 things”, Mr Cummings alleged.
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said “we absolutely reject” the claims and that he would “continue to work closely” with Mr Johnson responding to the pandemic.
Mr Cummings was appointed chief adviser by Mr Johnson when he took power in July 2019, helping him to secure a thumping election victory that December.
The 49-year-old was criticised for undermining the government’s lockdown message early in the pandemic when he went on a lengthy cross-country journey with his family.
During his evidence, Mr Cummings said security concerns around his London home had been an additional, previously undisclosed, factor in the decision.
Despite Mr Johnson riding high after successful local election results in England this month, Mr Cummings’ testimony could refocus attention on his government’s patchy performance responding to the pandemic.
But Mr Johnson’s government has also overseen a successful vaccination drive, having offered more than two-thirds of adults at least one dose.
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Originally published as Coronavirus world: China slams US over ‘conspiracy’ virus probe, Facebook reverses lab theory ban
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