UK Health Chief Slams China’s Lack of Transparency, Urges Probe Into COVID-19 Origins

British Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock speaks at a memorial tree planting ceremony at Oxford Botanic Gardens following a G7 health ministers meeting at Mansfield College, Oxford University, on June 4, 2021. Steve Parsons - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday that the UK’s early response to the COVID-19 pandemic was hampered by China’s lack of transparency, and called for “a fully independent investigation in China” into the origin of the CCP virus.

Appearing before the UK Parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee, Hancock said he did not know whether theories that the virus originated from a lab leak in Wuhan were correct, but he thought an independent probe was “vital” to establish the origin of the pandemic.