Photo: CFP

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US-launched cyberattacks have ramped up attacks against an online petition for a probe into Fort Detrick lab on COVID-19 origins as it has gathered nearly 20 million signatures. The petition has been a channel for overseas netizens to contribute their signature as many have expressed their support.

As of  Wednesday evening, the online petition demanding the World Health Organization (WHO) investigate the US' Fort Detrick lab on the origins of COVID-19 has gathered more than 17.75 million signatures, and the number is still growing.

Meanwhile, the server that hosts the petition has been under continued cyberattacks launched from US IP addresses, including DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks on a large scale. Earlier, the US-launched attack had come on Saturday evening when the number of signatures reached 10 million.

A group of Chinese netizens drafted the open letter urging the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick lab, and entrusted the Global Times to post the petition on WeChat and Weibo on July 17 to solicit a public response.

The Global Times has stepped up security measures to better protect the server.

After some foreign media reported on the open letter, some overseas netizens also expressed their willingness to support China to demand the WHO probe the US lab. The Global Times has therefore added the English version webpage to share this information with foreign netizens and create a way for them to show their support.  

Given the enthusiasm of Chinese netizens to sign the open letter, the total number signatures could exceed 20 million on Thursday. 

In early June, some Chinese netizens who closely followed the tracing of the origins COVID-19 published an open letter during the World Health Assembly session, demanding the WHO include the US biological laboratory at Fort Detrick in its second phase of the COVID-19 origins tracing investigation.

Netizens later decided to release another open letter after the US government constantly ignored their appeal and even continued to smear China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) with rumors. 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO head, outlined a plan recently for a second investigation in China of the origins of coronavirus, including a proposal for "audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019." The proposal was rejected by Zeng Yixin, China's vice minister of the National Health Commission on Thursday, saying it "disregards common sense and defies science." 

The Global Times strongly condemns the US-led cyberattacks and urges the US and the WHO to take the strong public opinion from China very seriously.

Click here to sign at the bottom of the webpage.