During the emerging tension between the US and China regarding the Coronavirus crisis, Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State said on Thursday, May 7, said that America needs all the details about the "patient zero." While talking at 'The Jack Heath Radio Show' he accused the World Health Organization of failing to provide information to the world in time about the risk of the Coronavirus outbreak in China that soon became pandemic within months.
During the show, Pompeo also stated that the COVID-19 was originated in China's Wuhan which Beijing had been denying for months. He also added that "This administration was very clear we weren't going to accept that disinformation, pushed back. I think the whole world knows that this began and originated there in Wuhan."
While talking to the host of the show Jack Heath, Pompeo also mentioned that it is important to know from where exactly the virus came from that killed over 269,500 people in the world. He added that:
There's evidence that it came from somewhere in the vicinity of the lab, but that could be wrong. We need to get the answer to that. It matters because we need to know where patient zero came from.
China Coronavirus: Patient Zero
While experts like French Nobel prize-winning scientist Luc Montagnier and Russian microbiologist Peter M Chumakov expressed their doubts on the origin of the virus which is claimed to have links to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, there are also some theories related to the "patient zero." As per reports, the most popular claim states that the initial transmission of the Coronavirus was bat-to-human and the "patient zero" worked at the laboratory who got accidentally infected before spreading the COVID-19 among the common people outside the lab in Wuhan city.
At "The Jack Heath Radio Show", Pompeo clarified that the US needs the information about the "patient zero" for all of the epidemiological work that needs to be done to protect Americans today and tomorrow. It should be noted that over the past few weeks, Pompeo has been claiming that the deadly Coronavirus originated in a lab located in Wuhan city where the outbreak was first detected last December.
However, a few days ago Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an advisor of Trump dismissed the claims that the deadly virus was created in a Chinese laboratory. He said that "If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated"
Pompeo said that the US doesn't trust the data coming from China with respect to coronavirus. He added that:
As for how many there were, we're trying to figure our way through that, but we are watching what China has done, he said. There's no reason to believe that either the reported cases that are coming out of China or the death total that they have provided remotely reflect what actually took place and continues to take place there.
He also noted that it is unfortunate that the Chinese Communist Party has restricted data sharing and decided not to behave in a transparent way. Pompeo said, "I think that's indicative of what communist parties do. It's what communist institutions do. Freedom-loving nations want information shared, want transparency, and want good things for people all around the world."
Blaming WHO for its role in Coronavirus pandemic
The 56-year-old US politician also alleged that the WHO has failed in its mission to share information about the Coronavirus outbreak to the world in time. He said, "They knew it; they saw it."
Pompeo claimed that WHO faced pressure from the Chinese government for not to declare the outbreak as a pandemic. He mentioned that the Geneva-based agency became a political institution rather than a medical, scientific institution that it was designed to be, but US needs an institution which will deliver "good outcomes" for US residents. However, WHO earlier claimed that they have shared details on COVID-19 within the time which was enough for the countries to implement safety measures.
