With the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) epidemic, many Western academic institutions and media outlets have referenced the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, one of China’s biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) maximum-security biolabs.
The majority of these mentions refer to an article titled “Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world’s most dangerous pathogens” that appeared in the science journal Nature in February 2017.
That article discussed certain “concerns” that the lab was about to undertake experiments on highly hazardous pathogens, a subject germane to the situation now playing out in China.
First, this article said that China’s BSL-4 lab, right from its inception, was intended not only for disease outbreak response, but also to increase China’s authoritativeness in the field of microbiological research.
When Japan built its first BSL-4 lab in 1981, it was limited to operating as a BSL-3 biolab, handling only lower risk pathogens. This changed in 2015, with an outbreak of the Ebola virus, when it started working on ways to fight biosafety hazards.
The Wuhan lab was built in 2015, and immediately began conducting research into high-risk pathogens such as hemorrhagic fever and SARS, but kept its high level biosafety risk under wraps.
Second, the Wuhan biolab is situated on the Yangtze River flood plain, and even though no major earthquake has ever been recorded there and the facility is constructed to withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake, there are densely populated areas nearby.
In the event of a major natural disaster, the presence of the facility is sure to exacerbate the effect on the local populace.
Given their lack of experience regarding events such as these, the ability of the facility’s personnel to effectively respond to a major natural disaster also poses a significant risk.
Finally, and most importantly, whether the facility can operate in a stable, secure fashion, with transparency and each individual working there being able to speak out, is crucial.
Even though the article was written three years ago, and it was specifically talking about the biolab and not medical institutions, it addresses the topics of planning and management, compound risk assessment implementation, personnel experience and training, and data transparency, mainly from the perspective of management and data structures, and it is very much applicable to an evaluation of the 2019-nCoV outbreak.
Looking at that article, all conspiracy theories aside, it is quite apparent that a lack of transparency is at the heart of how the 2019-nCoV situation has got out of control.
It also explains how the WHO misjudged the epidemic’s potential in its initial stages, allowing it to evolve into a global crisis.
It is therefore possible that the large scale of the crisis was caused, not because of the nature of the virus itself, but the rigid vertical, opaque framework of the system that allowed the epidemic to spiral out of control.
This is even more evident from the scenes broadcast from the frontline hospitals in Wuhan and other cities in China.
In addition, it was due to the centralized nature of the political system in China, which has made it difficult to understand the situation, that the WHO recently upgraded the 2019-nCoV to a “public health emergency of international concern.”
For Taiwan, which is prevented from joining the WHO, how to obtain the latest information about the outbreak to adjust its response to the crisis is an issue of pressing importance.
Shih Po-jung is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS