As politicians squabble over who is to blame for a nationwide spike in COVID-19 infections since earlier this month, it is important not to forget where the virus originated and who is responsible for a manifestly containable epidemic mushrooming into a ruinous global pandemic.
Eighteen eminent scientists, including a Stanford University microbiologist and Harvard University epidemiologist, in an open letter published in Science on May 13 called into question the WHO’s conclusion that it is “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the letter, the scientists wrote that theories of accidental release remain “viable” and deserve “a proper investigation.”
Further evidence over the murky origins of the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced on Sunday last week when the Wall Street Journal reported that it had obtained passages of a US intelligence report, which found that three researchers at the laboratory sought treatment at a hospital as early as November 2019 — one month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19.
Beijing has categorically denied that the virus emanated from China’s first level 4 biosafety laboratory, and initially pushed the hypothesis that the virus had “jumped” from animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which is just 12km from the laboratory. Chinese officials later orchestrated a disinformation campaign, flooding the Internet with wild and unsubstantiated theories, including that the virus was “bioengineered” by the US military.
Far too many politicians, scientists, media and technology companies were too quick to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, either swallowing Chinese propaganda hook, line and sinker, or cynically exploiting the issue for political purposes. As a result, more than a year into the pandemic, the international community is still no closer to discovering the origins of the virus.
Facebook — a tech company that has somehow become the arbiter of truth in the digital age — on Wednesday announced that it had lifted a ban on posts and news articles on the lab leak theory, having previously determined it to be false and misleading. However, Facebook was not the only entity guilty of stifling proper debate and investigation into the virus’ origins.
On entering office, US President Joe Biden’s administration shut down an investigation into the lab leak theory initiated by his predecessor. However, on Tuesday, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci appeared to pave the way for a U-turn on the theory. During a testimony to a US Senate panel, Fauci acknowledged that US funding might have been used for controversial “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. Then, on Wednesday, prior to Facebook’s volte-face, Biden confirmed the U-turn by instructing US intelligence agencies to “redouble” their efforts into discovering the root cause of the virus and deliver findings within 90 days.
However, the most serious aspect to this affair is that US taxpayers might have inadvertently funded biowarfare research at the Wuhan laboratory. Given that it is official Chinese Communist Party policy to promote “military-civil fusion,” that no independent access to the laboratory is allowed and that US intelligence agencies previously said that they believe Beijing is conducting a covert biological weapons program, the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from the lab, and might be linked to military research, should be taken seriously.
COVID-19 could be the world’s first instance of “accidental biowarfare” — an involuntary leak that was capitalized on by Beijing to further its strategic interests and damage its archenemy, the US. Chinese generals have a term for this: They call it “unrestricted warfare.”
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