Covid-19 plot twist: China claims virus may have emerged from the US

The US not only botched its own response to Covid-19; it also obstructed and sabotaged international cooperation in various ways, allege a white paper released by China

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China has pushed back against US allegations suggesting the Covid-19 virus may have originated in the US, following repeated accusations from the Trump administration that the virus outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

 

China released a white paper titled ‘Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China’s Actions and Stance’ on Wednesday (local time), presenting its case that Covid-19 virus may have originated in the US and its government has “tried to shift the blame” and divert people’s attention by “shamelessly politicising SARS-CoV-2 origins tracing”.

 

“Substantial evidence suggests that Covid-19 might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China,” the whitepaper mentioned.

 

 China blames US for pandemic

 

Choosing to downplay the severity of the epidemic, the US government on multiple occasions compared Covid-19 to the flu, saying that it would disappear automatically one day, it said. “The US not only botched its own response to Covid-19; it also obstructed and sabotaged international cooperation in various ways. The deliberate concealment of information by the US government misled other countries and the WHO in the research and analysis of Covid-19 trend,” the report reads. 

 

The report said China shared important information with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other countries on time. It pointed out that a joint investigation by China and the WHO found that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”. China alleged the US should stop ignoring international concerns and respond honestly to them.

 

 China counters US lab-leak narrative

 

The whitepaper is seen as a response to the recently launched (April 18, 2025) US website ‘Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19’ documenting the evidence that Covid-19 was not a natural calamity but a human-made disaster.

 

“The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Data shows that all Covid-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events,” the website reads. The US criticised China for conducting multiple research projects that pose a risk to human life.  

 

 US links Wuhan lab to outbreak

 

“Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels. Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before Covid-19 was discovered at the wet market,” the website mentions.

 

US research suggests that from all perspectives, the Covid-19 outbreak could not be from a natural origin like other viruses in the past. “By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin, it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t,” it reads.