David Ignatius is jumping on the “it came from a bioweapons lab” bandwagon. From his most recent Washington Post column:
To be clear: U.S. intelligence officials think there’s no evidence whatsoever that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory as a potential bioweapon. Solid scientific research demonstrates that the virus wasn’t engineered by humans and that it originated in bats.
But how did the outbreak occur? Solving this medical mystery is important to prevent future pandemics. What’s increasingly clear is that the initial “origin story†— that the virus was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan — is shaky.
Scientists have identified the culprit as a bat coronavirus, through genetic sequencing; bats weren’t sold at the seafood market, although that market or others could have sold animals that had contact with bats. The Lancet noted in a January study that the first covid-19 case in Wuhan had no connection to the seafood market.
There’s a competing theory — of an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus — that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?
Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,†with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.†He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,†compared with the top BSL-4.
Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.†Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures†so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.â€
And then there’s the Chinese study that was curiously withdrawn. In February, a site called ResearchGate published a brief article by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao from Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology. “In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories,†the article concluded. Botao Xiao told the Wall Street Journal in February that he had withdrawn the paper because it “was not supported by direct proofs.â€
Accidents happen, human or laboratory. Solving the mystery of how covid-19 began isn’t a blame game, but a chance for China and the United States to cooperate in a crisis, and prevent a future one.
As someone else once said in another context, at this point what difference does it make?
What we do know, through genome studies, is that COVID-19 originated in China. We know that more than a million people have been infected. We know that the best hope for preventing its spread would have required China to be forthcoming about the virus much, much earlier. We know that its cost in terms of lost income and revenue will be in the tens of trillions and the cost in terms of lost lives immeasurable.
We also know, with a confidence founded on experience, that we can’t trust the Chinese government’s official statistics. As long as the Chinese Communist Party is in power, cooperation is meaningless.
And I’ve already made my view clear. Whether the virus is a weapon, an accidental release, or naturally occurring, as long as the CCP holds the reins, trade, travel, and, indeed, any interaction whatever with China is simply not worth the risk.
“What’s increasingly clear is that the initial “origin story†— that the virus was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan — is shaky.”
Shaky as compared to what? The lab leak origin story has no evidence beyond assumptions based on the location of one lab piled on more assumptions.
That the virus was not an engineered weapon but simply an accidental escapee are not mutually exclusive.
As for your post, I couldn’t agree more. All things China need to be re-evaluated. The globalists need to be ignored. That means the HRC’s and Joe Bidens of the world. Along with the large corporates and environmental zealots who cast their lot with China. Will the consumer support that? I don’t know.
We sue McDonalds when some bonehead spills hot coffee on their crotch, and think that’s just swell. How about when China unleashes a catastrophic pandemic on the civilized world?
David Ignatius is truly ignorant, and a scare monger. The Chinese ecology naturally produces human/animal viruses of all sorts. It recently produced another coronavirus, SARS-CoV in 2003. The annual influenza virus (a different type) also originates in China.
Or more specifically, the Chinese rice paddies. The paddies attract migrating birds (bird flu), and humans, water buffalo work in them, and the humans keep chickens and pigs nearby. The animal/human viruses mix, recombine and mutate. Sometimes the chickens die, sometimes the pigs, sometimes us. A bad virus emerges once a decade. A really bad one, Spanish Flu, emerges once a century.
All this has been known to the public health experts for decades. Ignatius (how appropriate) and other make a living libeling China and Russia and drumming up war hysteria. They, themselves, are utterly immoral and depraved.
What the Chinese government did in covering up the seriousness of the virus for those 3 weeks should never be forgotten.
But as much as I hate to say this — right now the US has to push those matters aside.
The Chinese are the only ones beside South Korea to have controlled an outbreak and the South Korean was 1 order of magnitude smaller then the Chinese / US / Europe one.
The US needs to rack the Chinese medical / epidemiological brains and understand what worked in the field.
Verify then trust and all that but let’s see what they know.
How confident are you of that? I think that we need to completely ignore the information from China. It’s too self-serving and too contradicted by other sources to be used in formulating policy.
South Korea is another case entirely. I think we should pay attention to South Korea although I’m not confident that we can emulate the South Koreans if for no other reason than one of scale. South Korea has administered tests to about 10% of its population. It’s enormously easier to test 10% of a much more cohesive population of 50 million than it is 10% of a population of 330 million people who simply won’t comply.
How do you propose we do that? Invade China and seize their records? We simply cannot get reliable information from the Chinese authorities. Garbage in—garbage out. Additionally, I don’t think we can be confident that China has actually controlled their outbreak.
Don’t buy intentional release at all. Far too soon to really crush the economy to Get Orange Man Bad out. As other bloggers have pointed out, Bookworm for one, untidiness and sloppiness are part and parcel of Han culture. IMO s**t just happened and now the Never-Trumpers are intentionally making a bad situation worse by hysteria, Tuesday-Morning quarterbacking and general all around sniping. The consensus needs to be that the elimination or at least the reduction of the power of the Han Empire as it is current configured is in the best interests of America and the world. Any shilling or apologies for the CCP is like making excuses for Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot or Mr. H. Xi is a bad corrupt tyrant and he and his coterie ain’t gonna change, so your attitudes practices better change.
The only marker I judge the outbreak is controlled (for now), in China is the hospitals are not overflowing even as lockdown is reduced. Or schools being reopened province by province, have the South Koreans been able to do that?
The infected case numbers and deaths are probably undercounted — but it isn’t unbelievable, the demographic profile that has been released is consistent with the data from the rest of the world.
If the Americans asked; I think the Chinese would let us know what their doctor and epidemiologists believed was effective on them.
If only because the virus is their enemy too, it is no good for the CCP or China if the rest of the world is (a) is too sick to buy their exports (besides medical goods) (b) too disrupted to make their food imports (c) at risk of importing the disease back into China.
A lot of people / countries have described the struggle against the coronavirus virus as war — well in war one sometimes has to work with entities one would never do in another circumstance.
I could be wrong and the CCP would rather stick it the US; well that would be remembered too.
I think that China’s authorities are a lot less concerned about ordinary Chinese people than you seem to assume and their numbers may be comparable to those in other countries because they’re what other countries are reporting rather than because their experience is similar.
Just remember the Chinese numbers were largely publicized before outbreaks in other countries — requires prescience to know what the real numbers were beforehand.
I think the CCP are concerned about ordinary Chinese not in the sense they value their welfare above all else, but they are concerned ordinary Chinese will become restless if the crisis does not resolve ASAP and global depression and revolutions occur.
“No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism for the last twenty-five years… But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding.†— Churchill on working with a different set of Communists during a different crisis.
Maybe I am insane to take this position now; but I got rather depressed looking at the data for various strategies in the last few days.
You make a good point. I remain skeptical. Part of what I think the Chinese authorities are trying to do is to preserve their reputation for brilliance and they can’t do that if the outbreak continues to grow.
“the Chinese authorities are trying to do is to preserve their reputation for brilliance” — that is an accurate observation.
There is good evidence the outbreak is suppressed through — much further suppressed then South Korea.