Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that China’s Communist Party must allow international investigators to look into security and research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers were studying bat coronaviruses like the one behind the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Pompeo also suggested that poor security at China’s biological research labs could have resulted in the virus leaking from a laboratory and causing the global outbreak of disease.

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Asked by a reporter about Chinese disinformation blaming the United States for the pandemic, Mr. Pompeo said that “the information we provide about where this virus began in Wuhan is just data.”

Pray that the truth will come out about the origins of COVID-19. Pray for Secretary of State Pompeo–ask the Lord to give him discernment, wisdom, and influence throughout the world.

“The Chinese Communist Party tells us they want to be our partner. They want to be transparent,” he said at a press briefing at the State Department. “We need partners that we can rely on, that when they tell us something it is accurate and that we don’t think they’re hiding anything.

“But we still haven’t gained access, the world hasn’t gained access to the WIV, the virology institute there. We don’t know precisely where this virus originated from.”

Multiple labs are continuing to conduct research on contagious pathogens in China, and “we don’t know if they are operating at a level of security to prevent this from happening again,” he said.

“Remember, this isn’t the first time we’ve had a virus come out of China,” Mr. Pompeo said.

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating whether the new coronavirus strain escaped from a Wuhan laboratory or was triggered by a mutation of a virus found in bats that allowed it to jump to humans through meat from a nearby wild animal market.

Mr. Pompeo said biological laboratories like those China should follow international inspection protocols like those used at nuclear facilities to prevent accidents.

“We need the same kinds of processes for bio systems and bio laboratories as well,” he said.

“We would urge every country, all of our partners to demand that we get answers for what happened here,” Mr. Pompeo said at the briefing.

“But also that we get the transparency, that the world gets the transparency it needs to make sure that those who are conducting scientific research on complex viruses and pathogens are doing so in a way that doesn’t create the risk that we get, precisely the economic devastation and the enormous loss of life that we have all suffered, that came out of Wuhan, China.”

Mr. Pompeo also defended President Trump’s plan to suspend U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, which he said “failed in its mission.” Mr. Trump has said the U.N. agency understated the dangers of COVID-19 early in the crisis and is too beholden to China.

“We shouldn’t pretend that just because some organization has ‘health’ in its title that it is capable of delivering the outcomes that we need,” Mr. Pompeo said.

Critics say China pressured WHO in January to falsely report that the virus was not transmittable between humans and therefore no travel restrictions were needed.

(Excerpt from Washington Times. Article by Bill Gertz.)