US needs to lead investigation into COVID origins—not defer to WHO

The White House said yesterday that they would be entrusting the World Health Organization and international partners to lead and conduct an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, which caused the 2020 global pandemic. The US should be taking the lead on investigating the origins of COVID, not deferring to international interests.

It was in February 2020 that Biden said "...were I president now, I would not be taking China's word for it," saying that he "would insist that China allow our scientists in to make a hard determination of how it started, where it's from, how far along it is."

So why is Biden now deferring to international partners that are more interesting in schilling for the CCP than getting to the bottom of this investigation?

The World Health Organization had the chance to lead, and they blew it. They issued their final report on COVID in February, and barely discussed the origins of the virus at all. They focussed on the zoonotic origins of the virus, offered no understanding as to how that virus jumped to people, and said that it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus came from a lab. They went so far as to say that the question was not worthy of "further studies."

The WHO took the access China gave them, which was reportedly very little, and the report that they issued was likely not an independent study at all, but one that was heavily influenced by CCP interests that have done everything they can to gloss over their culpability as regards either the origin or the spread of the virus.

Repeatedly during a press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that President Biden trusts the international community to lead this essential investigation into what may have happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that could have led to the massive, world-sweeping outbreak that killed millions and decimated economies.

"The President believes there needs to be an independent investigation, one that's run by the international community," Psaki told reporters. "It's an international pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  

"He believes the Chinese need to do more to put forward data, to be more transparent. And in the second phase of this effort, he's certainly hopeful that will be the case, and he believes that every theory should be explored through that process but that we shouldn't jump to conclusions before that data and that information is made available."

In April 2020, President Trump's State Department began an investigation into the origins of the virus, launching the "lab-leak" hypothesis from conspiracy theory to probability. While mainstream media outlets said the idea was crazy, and social media platforms squashed talk of the theory, the investigation continued. It was recently reported that after Biden took office, his administration put a stop to that investigation.

The Wall Street Journal revealed that scientists had taken ill will COVID-like symptoms in November of 2019, months before China alerted the WHO or the global community at large that a novel, new coronavirus was on the loose. Speculation about this potentiality was already making the rounds in March 2020.

It's time for Biden to make good on his promise from February 2020, and not defer to an international community that, under this new administration, takes American complicity for granted.