At the visit of the Swiss President to Beijing in 2019, Chinese honor guards held both Chinese and Swiss flags. MADOKA IKEGAMI/POOL/AFP via Getty ImageChinese state media reported several stories alleging that the US interfered with WHO investigations into COVID-19's origins.Media reports were based on Facebook posts by an account attributed as Wilson Edwards. Chinese media claimed that Edwards was a Swiss biologist.According to the Swiss Embassy, there are no records that could have been of such a citizen.For more stories, visit Insider's homepage.Chinese state media outlets removed articles that quoted a Swiss biologist claiming the US interfered with the World Health Organization's [WHO] coronavirus investigations. The claim was made after the Swiss Embassy in Beijing stated that the biologist is unlikely to exist.These media reports were based on a Facebook post by a Wilson Edwards account, who was claimed to be a biologist by Chinese media. According to tweets from Edward Lawrence, the BBC, Edwards' profile said Edwards grew up in Bern, Switzerland and now lives there.According to The Guardian, Edwards wrote on Facebook that the US had "enormous pressure" and "even intimidation" against researchers looking into the coronavirus' origins.Edwards, per The Guardian, wrote that "The WHO sources informed me the US was so obsessed with attacking China over the origin-tracing problem that it is unwilling to open its eyes and to the data and findings."Numerous Chinese state media outlets published articles that cited Edwards' comments. The headline of People's Daily, China's official newspaper, read, "US attempts to overturn the report, leveraging WHO as a political tool," The Global Times tabloid, which is known for reflecting the views of party officials, published a piece titled "COVID-19 origin tracking: Claim emerges from the US."The Swiss mission in China sent a tweet Tuesday expressing doubts about Wilson Edwards' authenticity."Looking for Wilson Edwards," a rumored biologist, has been cited in China's media and social media over the past few days. We would love to meet you if you are here! The embassy tweeted.Continue the story-Embassy in Switzerland in Beijing (@SwissEmbChina), August 10, 2021The Swiss mission tweeted that it had no record of Wilson Edwards, a Swiss citizen, and no evidence of any academic articles in biology that were cited under his name. According to the mission, Edwards' Facebook page was created the day before the accusatory post. Edwards had only three Facebook friends. Insider asked Facebook for comment about the authenticity and origins of Wilson Edwards' Facebook account.The Embassy urged Chinese media and netizens not to quote Edwards on social media.Insider was informed by a spokesperson for the Swiss Embassy in China that "The Swiss Embassy has published this tweet to draw attention on the fact the person mentioned isn't Swiss." "This was published by the Embassy after it became clear that Chinese media and social networks were misreporting what was falsely claimed to be the work of a Swiss biologist.People's Daily, and The Global Times took down their articles on Wednesday. Insider's request for comment was not immediately answered by the Chinese mission in Switzerland, The Global Times and People's Daily.Edward Lawrence, BBC's director of communications, tweeted Tuesday that Edwards' profile picture on Facebook was a photo of University of Oxford's Radcliffe Science Library. It was taken from a travel site.China has been denying other nations' theories that the coronavirus may have originated in a Wuhan lab leak. These claims have been denied by China, which has subsequently advanced its own theories about the virus' origins elsewhere.In January, a WHO investigation found that it was extremely unlikely that the virus originated from a laboratory leak. However, the debate was revived after The Wall Street Journal obtained a US intelligence report which stated that staff had been sick for a month prior to the virus being discovered. In May, President Joe Biden directed a US intelligence investigation into the virus' origins to be conducted for a second 90-day period.Insider has the original article.
