Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Thursday on ABC’s “The View” that China needed to be more transparent on the origins of COVID.
Co-host Sara Haines asked, “There’s been an ongoing debate about the origin of COVID-19. Last month the Department of Energy said the virus most likely originated from a lab in China. Then last week, an international team of virus experts said they found genetic data linking the origin to raccoon dogs sold at a market in Wuhan, China. Some think the World Health Organization should be investigating for possible coverups. Do you agree? Will we ever truly know where this came from?”
Murthy said, “I’m glad you asked. It’s part of an effort to make sure something like this never happens again and that we are better prepared for a pandemic as well, we have to investigate and understand the origins of COVID-19. That’s part of the process. One of my big concerns is that right now, we don’t have all the data we need to make a definitive conclusion about the origin. That’s why you see that even President Biden charged the intelligence community to be looking at this and prioritizing it. There were differences of opinion in the intelligence community.”
He continued, “We are missing information. The WHO has tried to do investigations. They’ve been blocked in part by not getting enough information from China, which is where this originally started as far as we can tell.”
Murthy added, “This is a big concern for me, because we have to continue to push for that transparency from China. Whether it’s China or any other country, when an illness starts in one part of the world, it can rapidly spread. We all have to commit as a global community to being transparent, open, and honest with each other.”
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