Opinion | What does the US really hope to achieve with its probe into coronavirus’ origins?
- The US stance on investigating Covid-19 seems more about politics, in particular ‘engaging China from a position of strength’
- Washington needs to show greater humility and openness, and focus on protecting its citizens’ health by learning from its pandemic failures
Global society has urgently called for collective leadership. To our dismay, many world leaders have not displayed humility to acknowledge the forces of nature, resulting in a misguided approach to tackling the crisis.
Results of the assessment are expected by end of August. Foreign Affairs magazine wrote this month that “they are unlikely to produce a definitive answer” and “few outside the United States will accept its conclusion” because there is no independent corroboration.
It is clear that the nature of an intelligence investigation is fundamentally different from that of a scientific investigation. WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, by contrast, said the investigation in China had dual goals – to help find better interventions for the world to counter the ongoing pandemic, and to prevent similar pandemics from occurring in the future.
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The global spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19
Not only is there a real risk of a lack of independence in the US intelligence community’s investigation, but the tight time frame of 90 days could also lead to shaky conclusions.
