WATCH: White House press sec says we should trust WHO-led international investigation into COVID-19 origins | The Post Millennial
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WATCH: White House press sec says we should trust WHO-led international investigation into COVID-19 origins
When questioned on Tuesday about the growing theories that the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of virology in China, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stressed the importance of an international independent investigation led by public health
When questioned on Tuesday about the growing theories that the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of virology in China, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stressed the importance of an international independent investigation led by public health experts to find the truth.
"Does President Biden think these theories we hear more about now that COVID-19 may have been manmade and escaped from a lab in China are a wacky conspiracy theory or based on what he has heard and been briefed on, does he think that's possible?" Fox News' Peter Doocy asked Psaki.
"The President believes there needs to be an independent investigation, one that's run by the international community. It's an international pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world," said Psaki. "He believes the Chinese need to do more to put forward data, to be more transparent. And in the second phase of this effort, he's certainly hopeful that will be the case, and he believes that every theory should be explored through that process but that we shouldn't jump to conclusions before that data and that information is made available."
Another reporter asked Psaki to comment on a report from House Republicans suggesting that dissenting views in the intelligence community regarding the origins of the coronavirus were suppressed and whether the Biden administration as doing anything to ensure that this suppression wasn't happening.
"I think we've sent a clear message that we are going to rebuild our institutions, whether that's the intelligence community, the justice department, the civil service who are the backbone of our government," said Psaki. "I think when it comes to the kind of reports we've seen over the last couple of days, our view is that sound and technically credible theories should be thoroughly evaluated by international experts."
Psaki stressed again the importance of an internationally driven investigation led by heath experts due to the international status of the pandemic.
"I think we need access to the underlying data, we need access to the information that the Chinese government has in order to make a determination through the international bodies that would do this investigation, and that's something we've called for many many times," said Psaki. "We've pressed with our international partners for the WHO to support an expert driven evaluation of the pandemic's origins."
"We would certainly participate in that with all of our resources from the United States, but given it was an international pandemic, yes it's killed as you said more than 500,000 people here in the United States, killed hundreds of thousands more around the world, we're going to do that in coordination with our international partners, continue to press the Chinese to released that information, and play a constructive role in the second phase," Psaki continued.
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