Desperate to pin the blame for the COVID-19 pandemic on China, the U.S. has resorted to inducement and coercion to produce a damning report regarding the coronavirus origins, the Global Times reported.

The report, citing a source close to the matter, said that high-level U.S. officials have been persuading China's neighboring countries to point at China for the origin of the virus and the pandemic. In return, the U.S. promises vaccine aids, cooperation in vaccine research, development and transfer, and a steady supply of vaccine raw materials.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials have been ordered to spare Europe and Latin America in the virus origins tracing efforts to avoid exposing U.S. allies and the country itself to scrutiny. The move shows the U.S. only wants to "take care of the interests of its allies" and focus on the theory that "China is the virus source," according to the unnamed source.

U.S. President Joe Biden in May ordered intelligence officials to "redouble" efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19, including a theory that it came from a laboratory in China.

The move is believed to be an attempt by the administration to overturn a WHO-China joint report on the coronavirus origins tracing released earlier this year, which concluded that there could be multiple sources of the coronavirus outbreak. A scientist close to the WHO-China joint expert group previously told the Global Times that the 90-day investigation was a "coordinated political campaign."

But as the 90-day deadline draws near, the probe has been unable to come up with credible evidence to support the "lab leak theory" peddled by some American politicians.

The scientific community, including research institutions in the U.S., overwhelmingly believe the coronavirus originated in nature. However, some U.S. scientists have reportedly faced mounting pressure to challenge this view.

The source told the Global Times that the U.S. government is going all out to threaten and entice them, including doxing these scientists and their families, censoring their papers and forcing their employers to put pressure on them.

In an open letter in the medical journal The Lancet, dozens of scientists opposed the ongoing attempt to politicize the virus origins tracing efforts and refuted the "lab-leak theory," which has put some prominent epidemiologists in a difficult situation.

(Cover photo by CFP)