Eighteen months since China reported the first patient with Covid-19 like symptoms, the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread like wildfire over the world claiming the lives of over 35 lakh people and infecting over 16.8 crore in over 180 countries. Amid all this, the mystery around the origin of the virus has remained far from resolved.
The virus was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan and since then China has been chided for its lack of transparency. In the absence of any evidence, several theories for the origin of the virus were put forward. Among them, a few possibilities, such as the theory which said that the virus originated in nature, have received more traction than others. Meanwhile, other theories raised questions on China’s intentions and handling of the dangerous virus. These include possibilities of an accidental leak of the Covid-19 virus from a Wuhan lab and Beijing deliberately manufacturing the virus as a bioweapon. Now, calls for a fresh investigation into the origin of the virus have brought the matter to the fore. In recent months, the idea that the virus emerging from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has gained new credence.
Speaking to ANI, Nicholas Wade, a former science writer and editor for the New York Times said that, in his view, the escape scenario provides a better explanation for the available facts than does the natural emergence scenario. Developments in recent weeks have turned the media’s focus around the lab in Wuhan namely Wuhan Institute of Virology. Wade suggested that member countries of the WHO at the 74th World Health Assembly should politely ask “China to unseal the records of the WIV and other virology labs in Wuhan.”
Addressing the WHO’s main annual meeting of member states, the United States and other countries called on Tuesday for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive. Australia, Japan and Portugal were among other countries to call for more progress on the investigation, while the British representative urged for any probe to be “timely, expert-driven and grounded in robust science”.
A few days ago, an article was published in the Wall Street Journal which revealed that three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalised. The report was based on previously undisclosed US intelligence. The researchers were admitted into the hospital a month before China reported the first case of Covid-19.
The revelation has sparked debate and raised questions about whether China knew of the deadly virus way before it apprised the world. Wade said that if the reports are true it shows that the pandemic started several weeks earlier than the given by the Chinese authorities. “The importance of the report, if true, is that it shows the pandemic started several weeks earlier than the date given by the Chinese authorities, and therefore that the Chinese had longer to prepare for it. Had they shared this information with the rest of the world, many lives could perhaps have been saved,” he said in an email interview.
Recently, Wade published an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists where he argues that evidence is stronger than the virus leaked from a lab than that it occurred naturally. “For the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus is a no-brainer. Wuhan is home to China’s leading centre of coronavirus research where researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 lab. If a virus with the unexpected infectiousness of SARS2 had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise,” he said. Wade also talked about lack of access to evidence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or related labs in Wuhan.
Bernard Roizman, a University of Chicago virologist told WSJ: “I’m convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to a lab, they started to work with it…and some sloppy individual brought it out,” said ..”They can’t admit they did something so stupid.”
Another head-turning development that shocked experts and scientists was the report in an Australian daily which revealed that Chinese scientists were thinking about bioweapons, visualising a World War-III scenario. The Weekend Australian newspaper cited a Chinese government document that discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronavirus.
Titled the Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the 2015 paper was authored by Chinese scientists, Chinese public health officials and members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).