Politicizing COVID-19 fight is perilous, says S African official

JOHANNESBURG -- As the rest of the world tries to fight the COVID-19 pandemic with science, some in the United States have chosen to politicize COVID-19, Anwar Adams, a councilor in the City of Cape Town has said.

In an article published by the Pretoria News on Tuesday, Adams voiced his concerns that politicizing COVID-19 fight is perilous.

Adams noted that one of the recommendations made by the international team visiting China on origin tracing was that future origin-tracing research should also be expanded to other locations outside China.

"In particular, the Fort Detrick lab in the United States has been identified as one such location where serious origin-tracing of COVID-19 should be investigated," he said in the article.

Adams said reports suggest that the lab had stored various deadly viruses. Other reports even suggest that anthrax bacterium had been stolen from the lab in the past and a leakage incident in the autumn of 2019, just before the global outbreak of COVID-19, he added.

"Yet despite this evidence, WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in particular, has been under pressure from the United States to keep the focus on China and ensure that the U.S. narrative -- that COVID-19 came from Wuhan -- continues," said Adams.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the World Health Organization has cautioned against politicizing the COVID-19 fight, said Adams. "However, it seems that it has finally started to buckle under pressure from the United States."

The continuous politicization of origin-tracing and the propaganda against China point to one thing: the United States has something to hide, he added.