China says U.S. COVID origin report is unscientific
China called a new declassified U.S. intelligence report on COVID-19 "unscientific" on Sunday.
The report claimed the pandemic could have possibly originated in a lab.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a statement, “A lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie” and added U.S. intelligence services "have a reputation for fraud and deception."
The U.S. briefing published earlier in the weekend said a lab leak in China was just as plausible an explanation as a natural origin theory to explain how COVID-19 first infected humans, but also that he truth may never be known.
China has consistently denied allegations its virology lab in Wuhan was the source of the first outbreak, first identified at the end of 2019.
A joint study by China and the World Health Organization published this year said COVID-19 most likely infected humans via the wildlife trade and all but ruled out a lab leak theory.
But critics have said the study failed to investigate the Wuhan labs.
The WHO established a new group last month to study the pandemic's origins and called on China to supply raw data to help the new investigation.
China declined, citing patient privacy rules.
On Sunday, Wang repeated China’s calls for the U.S. to open its own lab in Fort Detrick to an international probe.
