Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Former US Vice President Mike Pence said the US should demand that China’s leader “be honest” about the origins of Covid-19.
“Strong evidence suggests that the coronavirus jumped out of a Chinese laboratory,” Pence said in remarks at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. But he did not elaborate on the evidence.
Mike Pence was the leader of the Covid-19 task force during the administration of President Donald Trump.
In a paper posted last week, a team of 21 virologists said there is currently no evidence that the coronavirus started in a laboratory. But there is “substantial scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin,” the scientists wrote.
Pence criticized the Joe Biden government for rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO) which he says is controlled by China and for stopping the investigation into the origins of Covid-19 before turning around.
The former vice president also appears to be taking aim at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a laboratory at the center of the investigation into the origin of Covid-19 that previously received funding from the National Institutes of Health through the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance.
When America funds scientific research in China, Pence said, the United States becomes “involved in every violation that is committed.”
“Under no circumstances,” he said, “should the United States allow public or private funding for scientific laboratories in communist China.”
(roy/dob)
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