Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE WORLD HEALTH Organization has said that Washington had provided no evidence to support “speculative” claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab.
“We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus — so from our perspective, this remains speculative,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.
Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, emerging in China late last year, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.
Top US epidemiologist Anthony Fauci echoed the WHO’s statement in an interview published yesterday evening by National Geographic.
“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” Fauci told the magazine.
“Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species,” he said.
US President Donald Trump, increasingly critical of China’s management of the outbreak, claims to have proof it started in a Wuhan laboratory.
And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said “enormous evidence” backed up that claim, although the US intelligence community last week said it would continue to study whether the outbreak stemmed from infected animal contact, or a lab accident.
China has vehemently denied suggestions the lab was the source.
“Like any evidence-based organisation, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus,” Ryan said, stressing that this was “a very important piece of public health information for future control.
If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that regard.
Science at the centre
The UN health agency — which has also faced scathing criticism from Trump over accusations it initially downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak to shield China — has repeatedly said the virus clearly appears to have originated naturally from an animal source.
WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove stressed during yesterday’s briefing that there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and “from all of the evidence that we have seen… this virus is of natural origin.”
While coronaviruses generally originate in bats, both Van Kerkhove and Ryan stressed the importance of discovering how the virus that causes Covid-19 crossed over to humans, and what animal served as an “intermediary host” along the way.
“We need to understand more about that natural origin, and particularly about intermediate hosts,” Ryan said.
It was important to know “so that we can put in place the right public health and animal-human interface policies that will prevent this happening again,” he stressed.
The WHO said last week it wanted to be invited to take part in Chinese investigations into the animal origins of the pandemic, which in a matter of months has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide.
“We have offered, as we do with every case in every country, assistance with carrying out those investigations,” Ryan said Monday.
“We can learn from Chinese scientists,” he said.
But he warned that if questions about the virus’s origin were “projected as aggressive investigation of wrongdoing, than I believe that’s much more difficult to deal with. That is a political issue.
“Science needs to be at the centre,” he said.
“If we have a science-based investigation and a science-based enquiry as to what the origin species and the intermediate species are, then that will benefit everybody on the planet.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Gay prods marrying Gay Catholics, Paisley just turned in his grave .
Peter Robinson will have another heart attack
Eating too much cake?
Mrs. Robinson playing away again?!!?
Well done, Belfast!
Good for them. Having a situation where your marriage can be legal in one part of the country and not in another part is lunacy.
It can be beneficial for Northern Ireland to plough its own furrow at times, compared to the rest of the UK. Not in this case though.
Orange is the new pink.
Should be noted that it was 2 members of the SDLP that abstained, a third of their Councillors…
SDLP is divided to the core on this issue.
start of many countries following Ireland
The disputed territory “Northern Ireland” isn’t a country
Eh, sorry john but Northern Ireland is a country, regardless of the perceived political status prescribed by you. It’s not an independent sovereign state but Mick didn’t say it was.
So return those green thumbs to their owners post haste; eh, you can probably keep the red ones.
My understanding of language is that it functions using objectively verifiable rules of semantics that are entirely independent from the number of green or red thumbs a post receives on the journal.
“England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards and the UK’s Office for National Statistics, uses “country” to describe England, Scotland and Wales.[3] Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a “PROVINCE” in the same lists”
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_3166-2_newsletter_ii-3_2011-12-13.pdf
But it’s not really a province though is it? Ulster is a province. Otherwise we need to give them back Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. I do accept that it’s typical for people to call it a province, a country and a region and that ambiguity is understandable given it’s unique status.
I know it’s complex mate, language is quiet difficult and can confuse mere mortals, but given it’s distinct geography, political status and the everyday use of this term to describe it, Northern Ireland is a country more than it is a “disputed territory”; I didn’t sign the good friday agreement but I know that much.
Carmo, your post was inaccurate. Just accept that you were wrong and move on. Northern Ireland is not a country.
@carmo. Northern Ireland is not a country. You cannot get an ni passport. It doesn’t offer consular services. Residents have a choice of passports – Irish or British
What is it then?
Give them back cavan, donegal and monaghan? Its more a case of us getting back the six counties.
They can have Cavan.
Monaghan too.
We’ll keep Donegal though.
Oh no, the Westboro Baptist Church are going to kick off again.
We were promised that if we voted yes this would stop. For the love of god will it ever end?!
Careful now, your stupidity is shining through.
The beatings will continue until gay rights improve.
For the love of God would people who are not interested in gay related articles please stop reading them or you will be forced to right a complaint about it in the comments.
Where is the Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign?
It attracted some fine Christians like Big Ian.
Oh, right.
It went the way of the Dinosaurs.
Ah here! It’s unfair to lump the dinosaurs in with the bigots.
But where’s big roaring Ian now? Slowly but surely turning to dust
Nonsense click bait headline, everyone knows popolous seeking Sinn Fein and left wing alliance control Belfast city council (hence the flag fiasco) , it will be defeated in Stormont.
Not everyone wants to implement neo-liberal idealology
You view equality as neo-liberalism?!? Yeah, you probably do, actually!
John, neoliberalism revolves around economics and regulation of business and the like. It has nothing got to do with dragging Ireland out of the 1950s with its views to gay people.
@Were. SSM is only available to 2% of the worlds population, are 98% of the world in your view stuck in the 1950s? How self righteous of you.
SSM was manufactured by left wing liberalists, the notion of it was unheard of a decade ago.
The ancient Romans had SSM.
Nonsense. Prove it! The romans also practiced slavery, put people to death by lions in front of large audiences and practiced pedastry since you’re looking to the ancients for how to enligten our society.
The Netherlands has had marriage equality since 2001.
But sure don’t let that inconvenient fact get in the way of your myth that it was “unheard of a decade ago”.
@John
Cool yer jets! You said the SSM wasn’t thought of more than ten years ago. I responded that there was SSM inAncient Rome, no need to undermine the whole of antiquity because a couple of blokes could get married 2,000 years ago. Oh, you have a computer, check it out for yourself!
True, neo-liberalism is a economic philosophy couched in Marxist language but the definition has broadened in recent times. A better description would be pseudo liberals or illiberal liberals.
Actually, this is a really interesting historical perspective on the history of same-sex marriage from the Guardian…
-
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/-sp-secret-history-same-sex-marriage
Well The Guardian is the prayer book of choice of the pseudo liberals.
Says the pseudo-intellectual.
If an ability to see through the flak of pseudo liberalism and remain sceptical of the latest fad I will plead guilty to that attempt at an insult.
Holy smoke theo and John, your arguments and phrasing across this comment section is wholly inconsistent, I’m not sure but I’m guessing it’s troll logic.
It tells that the demand for homosexual couplings to be recognized was constant, has been substantiated legally before hand and is not a “modern”, decadent “choice”.
@John, you are confusing liberalism in the social sense with liberalism in the economic sense. Completely different things mate.
Yeah John. But we won. Oh yes baby. And middle Ireland told freaks like you that you now are in the minority.
I’m still undecided. There still hasn’t been enough debate.
The gays are just as bad as girls seeking equality…….who cares what a couple people vote on in Belfast as it means feck all as its not law!
Women seeking equality now are they? Well that will never happen.
Now what time is the next diplodocus to Bedrock? I have to return my wholly mammoth vacuum cleaner for re-bristling.
Kinda like the time SF held a united Ireland referendum in, wait for it……………South Armagh, a resounding yes vote too by the way, who’d have thought.
Yeah we know – the majority of unionist politicians are bigots, and wish to block two consenting adults from getting married.
Yeah and the fact SF agree with same sex marriage just excuses the 30 years of murder and maiming they were involved in doesn’t it. Never seen a bigger shower of populist hypocrites in all my life.
You haven’t met the aaa yet so..
Well done to my Party Colleagues, progressive politics at its best!
Orange you glad they’re on the way
I’m not an Ulster Unionist but it’s only fair to say that Jeff Dudgeon also spoke in favour of gay marriage. All you equal rights champions will remember that it was Jeff’s case in Europe that led to decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland.
The article doesn’t mention any Ulster unionist speaking in favour but Jeff Dudgeon is an Ulster Unionist councillor. And Jeff’s case was ten years before David Norris had to do the same in the south. So the decriminalisation of homosexuality across Ireland was achieved by a unionist and someone who until some time last month was dismissed as a West Brit revisionist by republicans.
And while everyone’s slagging the ghost of Ian Paisley clerics in the republic are attacking yes voters in their congregations.
More like belslow Amirite
have your say