The World Health Organization has laid out its plan for a second investigation into the origins of COVID-19. But why should we expect this one to be any different from the first?
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has at least recognized that the initial WHO investigation was insufficient, stating that there was a “premature push” to dismiss the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has since laid out plans for a new investigation, which includes “audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019.”
This would be a welcome development, but what has the WHO done so far to suggest that this actually changes anything? Aside from Tedros’s recent shift in tone, the WHO has done everything China and its secretive, paranoid regime could ever want from it. This included uncritically repeating whatever the Chinese government was saying, freezing out Taiwan, and absolving China of all blame in its first sham investigation. Through its actions and omissions, the WHO has effectively served as an organ of the Chinese Communist Party.
What happens when China simply refuses to let the WHO see anything worthwhile? The Chinese government has already decried the new investigation plan as being “at odds with the position of China” and accused other countries of politicizing the issue. China is not going to cooperate in incriminating itself. That’s exactly why the first investigation failed as it did.
Asking China nicely isn’t going to work, and the WHO likely lacks the stomach to make or follow through with whatever threats could force the Chinese government to participate. Maybe if President Joe Biden could bring himself to show more conviction in his desire to get to the origins of the virus, the WHO could be emboldened to play hardball with China. But Biden was content to rely on the WHO’s original investigation before public pressure forced him to backtrack. His heart simply isn’t in it.
China has been responsible for every delay and gap in knowledge when it comes to dealing with this pandemic. Going back to November 2019, when researchers at the lab became seriously ill, according to U.S. intelligence, we have now been subjected to 20 months of lies and obfuscation. It will take more than the WHO drawing up a new investigative plan to change that.
