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Source: Andrii Vodolazhskyi, Shutterstock
New Zealand has refused to join the countries who cast a shadow of doubt on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) findings on the origin of Coronavirus. New Zealand government said it would take an independent view on the WHO report, which was released on Wednesday. It said it would comment on the report after independently looking at it and was not joining other countries who are raising concern on its findings.
Thirteen countries, including close allies of NZ, raised a doubt over the WHO report saying that it lacked full credibility. However, New Zealand refused to join the chorus without independently assessing the report. Although NZ agrees that the countries have expressed concerns, but NZ will conduct an independent study and try to understand the science behind it before making any comment.
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The NZ foreign ministry is of the view that the scientist who have been involved in COVID-19 response will examine it, and only after that an appropriate comment can be expected from the NZ government.
The report, which came out on March 31, 2021, found that COVID-19 most likely arose in bats and was carried to humans from them via an intermediary animal. The report states that based on the evidences available, it can be said that the virus originated in China in late November.
The report findings are being looked at with doubt by the US, the UK, and Australia, who have a major concern that investigations can be flawed as there was no data available.
The report has also recommended more research into the complete picture of the origins of Coronavirus. The next stage of investigation will be pegged on what happened when people realised that there was some problem in China.
The key focus of this next stage of investigations is to analyse that what happened after people in China and elsewhere realised that there was a problem in China and other countries with early cases detected in Iran and Italy.
Due to a lack of full information and missing links, 19 countries signed a joint statement that the data was not enough for the report to conclude anything. The joint statement also stressed the need for transparency in such matters of global concern.
NZ’s absence from the joint statement has raised many eyebrows, hinting at NZ is trying to appease Beijing as China is NZ’s biggest trading partner.
However, the foreign ministry justified its stance saying that it wanted to be on the right side.
Earlier also, NZ had refused to join countries to protest the mass arrest of leaders and politicians in Hong Kong by China.
