This past week the World Health Organization, or WHO, gave their conclusions after researching the origin of COVID-19. Their conclusion after four weeks in China? It’s “extremely unlikely” that COVID’s origin was in that Wuhan lab. Furthermore, it probably came from bats to an animal host to humans. Rather like SARS and Ebola.

As WHO scientist Peter Ben Embarek said at a press conference on Tuesday: “Accidents do happen.” So, nothing to see here, move along.

Except now WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus may be doing a backpedal on the origin story. In fact, Tedros suggested that there are still questions to be answered:

“Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded. I want to clarify that all hypotheses remain open and require further study.”

You mean the hypothesis that maybe COVID did come from that Wuhan lab after all?

It also seems that not everyone on the WHO team was onboard with Embarek’s conclusions, either. Tedros continued:

“Having spoken with some members of the team, I wish to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study.”

The things that make you go hmmmm. Especially when Tedros has been known to be Xi Jinping’s reliable puppet since the COVID outbreak. Early in the pandemic, Tedros praised Beijing’s “commitment from top leadership” and its “transparency.” Plus, in its February, 2020 report, WHO really poured on the love:

 “In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.” 

Even worse, Der Spiegel published a story in May highlighting Tedros’s cozy relationship with Xi. Based on Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, the report claims that Xi Jinping personally called Tedros to ask him to “delay a global warning” about the pandemic. That set the entire world back in its fight against COVID:

“The BND estimates that China’s information policy lost four to six weeks to fight the virus worldwide.”

WHO, naturally, says these are “false allegations.” Frankly, I believe the Germans.

Achim Rosenhagen/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0.

But why is Tedros appearing to backpedal on WHO’s official origin story? Perhaps it’s because Peter Embarek jumped the gun when he pronounced that COVID did not originate in a lab. Then flippantly said that “accidents do happen.”

The Wall Street Journal just published a damning story, alleging that China refused to give WHO the raw data it needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. WHO had requested data on 174 COVID cases from Wuhan in the early days of the outbreak. Instead, the Chinese expected the WHO team to rely on the data they had supplied them.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist, found their information to be insufficient.

“They showed us a couple of examples, but that’s not the same as doing all of them, which is standard epidemiological investigation. So then, you know, the interpretation of that data becomes more limited from our point of view, although the other side might see it as being quite good.”

While Thea Fischer, an epidemiologist from Denmark, also said:

“I am a scientist and I trust data. I trust documented evidence based on data, I don’t just trust what anyone tells me.”

Furthermore, according to Dr. Dwyer, there were some heated exchanges between the WHO team and the Chinese. And China did not agree to provide the raw data to them, either.

The world is also learning of new anecdotal evidence which gives a much different timeline than the one China and WHO originally provided. Blood samples, a skin biopsy, and even sewage samples from Italy, Spain, and Brazil tested positive for COVID as far back as September, 2019.

As for the WHO mission to determine the COVID origin, it was destined to fail. So says China critic and author Gordon Chang:

“This is a parroting of a Beijing narrative. This just shows you that the WHO mission is completely worthless—actually is worse than worthless because it’s throwing people off the trail.”

But on Wednesday, President Biden said he had a “good conversation” with Xi Jinping. Joe even bragged that “last night, I was on the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping,” Plus, the New York Times gushed that “Biden warns him on human rights.”

Not only that, the White House also said the two leaders “exchanged views on countering the COVID-19 pandemic, and they shared challenges of global health security, climate change, and preventing weapons of proliferation.”

Forget the failed WHO mission, and China’s lies about COVID.  As well as its other lies and human rights abuses. Joe is here to handle China! Now, doesn’t that make you feel better?

Featured image: Nenad Stojkovic/flickr/cropped/CC BY 2.0.