Covid was made in US lab, claims aide to top EU diplomat
China has been promoting claims by an adviser to the European Union's top foreign diplomat that Covid-19 was made in an American laboratory.
Joe Barnes
Wed, 13 July 2022, 8:46 pm
One theory of Covid's origins states that the virus emerged after a breach in biosecurity at a lab in Wuhan - GETTY IMAGES
China has been promoting claims by an adviser to the European Union's top foreign diplomat that Covid-19 was made in an American laboratory.
At a recent international conference, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist, said he was “pretty convinced” the deadly disease had leaked out of a facility in America rather than China.
His remarks have since been seized upon by the Chinese government, raising serious questions over his position as a special adviser to Josep Borrell, the head of the EU’s foreign affairs wing.
Footage from the speech, at an event hosted by the Gate Center research group in Madrid last month, was shared by China’s embassy in Paris.
“I’m pretty convinced it came out of a US lab of biotechnology, not out of nature after two years of intensive work on this,” Prof Sachs told the gathering.
“So it’s a blunder, in my view, of biotech, not an accident of a natural spillover.”
The WHO identified Wuhan as the likely origin of the outbreak of the pandemic - AP
Prof Sachs chaired the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, established at the start of the pandemic to assist governments and scrutinise their responses.
The celebrity academic, who has twice been named in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, has previously been described as “China’s apologist in chief” for taking Beijing’s line on the Uyghur genocide and its role in the world.
At one time an economic adviser to the Soviet Union, Prof Sachs also sided with Vladimir Putin in his calls to halt Nato enlargement.
He now acts as an adviser to Mr Borrell on “issues specifically related to development policy and international cooperation”, including relations with China and Russia.
“Borrell has always had the luxury of choosing his advice without ever having to deal with the results,” a source told The Telegraph.
“It’s concerning that actual knowledge and an astutely-attuned moral compass has never been one of the qualities leaders base their decisions on when picking the EU's representatives.”
Nicolaus Fest, a German MEP, said: “Borrell has been regularly taking specialist advice from a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, all while lecturing us on the dangers of foreign interference. This shows that Borrell is not only a foolish hypocrite, but also dangerous incompetent.”
“It's clear that Sachs is not a special adviser, but rather a puppet of the Communist regime.”
A spokesman for Mr Borrell said Prof Sachs was an “external unpaid adviser” rather than a fully-paid EU official.
“External advisors are external, independent personalities. They therefore do not speak for Mr Borrell, nor for the Commission. Their views are their own.” the spokesman added.
Under his contract, which is publicly acknowledged on the European Commission's website, Prof Sachs provides 20 hours of advice each year.
In an article published on the Project Syndicate website last year, Prof Sachs wrote allegations of genocide in Xinjiang, home of China's Uyghur minority, were “justified”.
In 2019, the economist was slammed for criticising the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, an executive for Beijing-backed tech giant Huawei, as an example of US meddling in Chinese affairs.
While working for former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Prof Sachs led the controversial Millennium Villages project to create sustainable villages across Africa and end poverty. The project was criticised for relying on Western academics with little understanding of the local environment.
In an interview with Iranian media published online last week, Prof Sachs once again blamed the US for the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Experts from the World Health Organisation have largely identified a wet market in Wuhan, China as the origin of the first outbreak of the pandemic.
A natural spillover to humans from animals was said to be the most likely cause and a lab leak scenario “extremely unlikely”.
Professor Sachs did not respond to the The Telegraph's request for comment.
