Beijing must be more forthcoming about coronavirus origins, U.S. ambassador says

China’s government needs to be more forthcoming about the origins of COVID , the U.S. ambassador to China said Monday.

Beijing needs to “be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis,” Nicholas Burns told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently concluded that the pandemic started with a leak from a research lab in Wuhan. But the decision was reached with a “low” degree of confidence, and other agencies disagree.

“There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday. “There is just not an intelligence community consensus.”

Burns said that China needs to step up and help strengthen the World Health Organization to buttress global health, adding that the recent row over a suspected Chinese spying balloon did not help.

Earlier this month, the U.S. shot down the balloon after it flew across the States, though Chinese officials insisted the device was not intended for spying.

“We’re now in this surreal moment where the Chinese, who I think lost the debate over the balloon globally, lost influence and credibility around the world because of what they’ve done — they’re now blaming this on us,” Burns said, according to Reuters.

“It’s a little bit Orwellian,” he added. “And it’s a little bit frustrating, because I think everybody knows the truth here.”

China referred to a WHO report from earlier in the pandemic that found COVID had jumped from animals to humans in a wet market and spread from there. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that the dreaded virus escaped from a lab.

With News Wire Services