PHOTO:CFP

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) held a seminar on August 29, on which experts discussed about the unclassified summary of the intelligence community assessment on COVID-19 origins released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the U.S.

The experts reached an unanimous agreement that COVID-19 origin tracing is a matter of science, and to let intelligence agencies investigate a scientific issue is neither credible nor persuasive as it gravely violates the spirit and operation of science.

The report is not scientific but political.

The U.S. government waged political attacks in the name of origin tracing, which greatly harms the shared benefits of the mankind by interrupting the progress of origin tracing.

It should be scientists' business of origin tracing, thus only scientists are entitled to figuring out the origin of the novel coronavirus through objective and rigorous research with scientific attitudes, methods and facts, noted the experts.

The experts emphasized that the goal of origin tracing is to search for the animal origin of the virus and the transmission route to human beings. The findings would offer scientific rationale for making decisions on pandemic prevention and control, and prevent similar pandemic from happening again.

The China-World Health Organization joint research report should be the basis of future origin tracing work, which needs to combine new scientific findings and focus on animal origin and cold chain transmission.

The experts strongly call on that origin tracing research should be conducted in multiple places and multiple countries based on the early clues and relevant evidence spotted all over the world.

It is also of great importance to strengthen scientific cooperation to defeat COVID-19 as it is the common enemy of the human kind.