China bats for 'science-based, no politics' Covid origin-tracing

MANILA - The Chinese government is willing to work on a "science-based" global origin-tracing of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) but opposes any attempt to politicize such initiative. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, in a briefing for diplomatic envoys in China on August 13, said origin-tracing is a matter of science and must be left to scientists. "It should be and can only be left to scientists to identify, through scientific research, the virus' zoonotic source and animal-human transmission routes. No country has the right to put its own political interests above people's lives, nor should a matter of…