China has refused to cooperate with the World Health Organization (WHO) on reevaluating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, refusing to give additional data and citing the rejection a “politicizing the pandemic”. In recent months, the WHO has again put forward the laboratory-leak hypothesis that Washington has often spoken about in its political feud with Beijing. Beijing responded to the WHO’s request, saying that the joint preliminary investigation was sufficient enough, and the request for additional data has ulterior political motives. In their response, they rejected the new requests saying, “The finding and recommendations of the joint report have been recognized by the scientific and international community.” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaozhou said, “We oppose politicizing the search for assets.” He continued by adding “We support scientific research. He added, “Future research should be pursued and conducted only on basis of this report” stressing that “we should not start from scratch again.” The data requested by WHO about the first patients in Wuhan, China, is confidential. The head of the Chinese scientific delegation that co-authored the joint report with WHO confirmed that saying, “We only want to protect patient’s private lives.” He added, “Without their consent, no foreign expert has the right to copy the original data”. — SG