China makes stunning claim about Covid's origins after lab leak furor

Beijing has sensationally claimed that America — not China — is to blame for the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a white paper released Wednesday, China's State Council Information Office suggested the virus that killed 1.2 million Americans and at least 7 million people worldwide may have originated in the United States.

The document appears to be a direct rebuttal to renewed attacks from the Trump campaign, which has doubled down on claims that Covid leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — a lab known to be conducting coronavirus experiments — calling it the only plausible explanation for the pandemic.

The white paper released by China's State Council Information Office was meant to rebut the Trump Administration which has claimed the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) which was doing coronavirus experiments at the time.

In the report, Chinese officials wrote: 'The US government, instead of facing squarely its failure in response to Covid-19 and reflecting on its shortcomings, has tried to shift the blame and divert people's attention by shamelessly politicizing SARS-CoV-2 origins tracing.

'A thorough and in-depth investigation into the origins of the virus should be conducted in the United States. The United States should respond to the reasonable concern of the international community, and give a responsible answer to the world.'

The report goes on to say: 'Substantial evidence suggested the COVID-19 might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China.'

Despite originally being dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory, The CIA and FBI both believe evidence points to the Wuhan lab as the source of the virus.

Many virologists and epidemiologists still believe that the coronavirus emerged in the human population after being transmitted between various animal hosts.

The Chinese government said in its latest report that the US should not continue to 'pretend to be deaf and dumb,' but should respond to the legitimate concerns of the international community.

The report comes after White House launched a new Covid website earlier this month, where the official line is that the coronavirus escaped from the WIV labs while criticizing former President Joe Biden and top infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci.

The Chinese government wrote in its white paper that in January 2020, 'the US was aware that an epidemic of a novel coronavirus was spreading quickly within its borders' and chose to 'downplay the severity of the epidemic… [on] multiple occasions compared Covid-19 to the flu, saying that it would disappear automatically one day.

'The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged Covid-19 response. The US government's indifference and delayed actions wasted the precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic.'

The white paper goes on to allege that the virus has its roots in US soil, detailing respiratory disease outbreaks from May to October 2019 that the Chinese government alleges were Covid cases, though lab test results never concluded this.

'A US CDC study revealed that out of 7,389 serological survey samples collected from nine states between December 13, 2019 and January 17, 2020, 106 were SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive. This suggests that the virus existed in the US before the first official case was identified,' the white paper said.

It continued with a misleading claim that an NIH study proved that the coronavirus was widely circulating by December 2019.

NIH researchers tested 24,079 blood samples collected from participants across 50 states between January 2 and March 18, 2020, identifying nine containing antibodies for the virus.

But antibody tests can cross-react with other coronaviruses, such as the common cold, and can produce false positives. Further, antibodies only confirm exposure, not active infection or chains of transmission.

The Chinese government's framing also avoids noting that the initial sequences of the virus, conducted by officials at China's CDC, originated from patient samples at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and workers at the Huanan Seafood Market.

It added that the US recorded around 1,500 'serious laboratory incidents involving coronaviruses and other highly dangerous pathogens linked to diseases such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, anthrax, smallpox, and avian influenza.'

The allegation excludes the fact that all but 11 incidents were minor, such as broken vials. Fifteen people contracted laboratory-acquired infections, and there were three unintended infections of animals.

The Chinese government maintains that the US failed to proactively share information about early illness outbreaks with the World Health Organization.

'The US should cease from shifting blame and evading responsibility, stop finding external excuses for its internal malaise, and genuinely reflect on and overhaul its public health policies,' the Chinese government said.

'The US cannot continue to turn a deaf ear to the numerous questions over its conduct.'