Beijing today dismissed United States' renewed calls for further investigation into the origins of the coronavirus and more transparency from China terming it as "political manipulation". Members of US President Joe Biden's administration are pushing for a second phase of investigation to begin, led by the World Health Organization. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Wednesday described the calls as "political manipulation" and attacks on China.<br />''<br />''It comes after Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said earlier this month that he was not convinced the virus developed naturally and was in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus. Fauci on Tuesday again called for further investigation into the virus origins, as did Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser on the Covid-19 response, who called the inquiry a "critical priority" and urged China to be more transparent.<br />''<br />''<span style="color: #222222;">The US media on Sunday reported that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised just before the coronavirus outbreak was confirmed in 2019. Beijing termed the media report "completely untrue". The Wuhan lab, China's highest-level biosafety lab is at the centre of a hypothesis arguing that the SARS-Cov-2 could have accidentally leaked to human population during experiments on bat coronaviruses conducted there. <br />''<br />''China has denied that a lab leak was a possible cause and has once again suggested that the virus was just as likely to have come from US biolabs. An investigation by a WHO-led team of experts along with Chinese experts concluded in March that it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus leaked from a lab.</span><br />