China should grant international inspectors access to labs where scientists study viruses similar to the one that caused the coronavirus pandemic, in order to prevent the “accidental release” of such contagions, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“We have to make sure that the Chinese government is handling those materials in an appropriate way, not only in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but elsewhere,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department.
That call puts pressure on China and the World Health Organization, the United Nations specialized agency responsible for regulating such issues, to bring more transparency to the investigation into the origin of the contagion that has paralyzed much of Western society. Pompeo’s implication that the virus leaked out of a lab builds on preexisting State Department suspicions that the labs present a biosafety risk.
“It’s not just the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said. “There were multiple labs inside of China that are handling these things. It’s important that those materials are being handled in a safe and secure way, such that there isn’t an accidental release.”
Pompeo aired that misgiving about safety standards at Chinese labs while elaborating on President Trump’s frustration with the WHO. Many U.S. lawmakers and officials have faulted the WHO for accepting Chinese government claims that preliminary evidence suggested that the virus was not spreading between humans.
“The World Health Organization’s regulatory arm clearly failed during this pandemic,” Pompeo said.
WHO officials have defended their record by emphasizing the difficulty of knowing for sure whether the new coronavirus could spread more rapidly within a community than other viruses might.
“There are literally millions and millions of cases of atypical pneumonia around the world every year, and in the middle of an influenza season, sometimes it’s very difficult to pick out a signal of a cluster of cases,” WHO Health Emergencies Program Executive Director Michael Ryan told reporters on April 15.
Pompeo maintained that additional transparency is imperative to manage the current pandemic and avoid a repetition of any errors that contributed to the ongoing health crisis.
“The CCP still has not shared the virus sample from inside of China with the outside world, making it impossible to track the disease’s evolution,” he said.
