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Global Voices |
“COVID-19 is the common enemy of the entire humanity regardless of nationality, color or shape. It is important that the world link arms to fight this. The problem is if we politicize this, it becomes a hindrance to our efforts to combat this.” —Harry Roque, Philippine presidential spokesperson “Politicians shouldn’t strive to score points and increase their popularity by speculating about the COVID-19 situation.” —Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister “The investigation led by the U.S. intelligence community into COVID-19’s origins has a clear end-goal of diverting attention from the country’s pandemic response failures and casting blame on China.” —Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council “What we want to do for all parties, and everybody is calling for this, there’s widespread agreement amongst all our member states, let’s not politicize the process. The WHO was engaged in very positive consultations with a large number of member states, including China, on how to proceed with the next stages of the inquiry.” —Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program “As the rest of the world tries to fight the COVID-19 pandemic with science, some in the United States have chosen to politicize COVID-19. In particular, the Fort Detrick lab in the United States has been identified as one such location where serious origin-tracing of COVID-19 should be investigated. The continuous politicization of origin-tracing and the propaganda against China point to one thing: the United States has something to hide.” —Anwar Adams, a councilor in the City of Cape Town “Countries need to work together to defeat the pandemic, instead of interfering in the scientific research on the disease to promote a political agenda. We reject attempts to politicize, single out and stigmatize the studies on the origin of COVID-19. We acknowledge China’s responsible and transparent contribution in relation to the pandemic.” —Bruno Rodriguez, Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister “What the U.S. did in the origin-tracing of COVID-19 showed the attempts to politicize scientific issues and their consistent double standards in international affairs. China provided vaccines and support for other countries compared to some western countries, which did little in combating the virus globally.” —Marcos Cordeiro Pires, a Brazilian scholar “The US government’s attempts to politicize the pandemic by claiming China as the source of COVID-19 are not only groundless, but harmful to the global fight against the disease. There is no scientific evidence to validate Washington’s assumption that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.” —Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian neuroscientist and a tenured professor at Duke University in the US state of North Carolina “The US is using the China card to address domestic problems during the pandemic, rather than having any real interest in finding out the virus’ origin.” —Usman Sarki, a former deputy representative of Nigeria to the UN “Discourse around investigation into the origins of COVID-19 is the terrain of qualified scientists, and politics should never be allowed to interrupt scientific research work.” —Abbey Makoe, a former political editor at the South African Broadcasting Corporation “Virus origin-tracing is a scientific issue, which can only be determined by scientists, not politicians. China has spared no effort to assist other countries to combat the pandemic through providing medical equipment and supplies as well as COVID-19 vaccines. China’s support has saved countless lives around the world.” —Chea Munyrith, president of the Cambodian Chinese Evolution Researcher Association “The accusation about a man-made coronavirus is unreasonable, unprofessional and stupid. It is a pity that the research of such an epidemic has involved many political factors. Amid the current China-US relationship, blaming China would benefit the US.” —Alexander Semyonov, head of the Yekaterinburg branch of the State Research Center of the Virology and Biotechnology Vector Institute Sources: Xinhua News Agency, China Daily, CGTN |
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