Since last year I have been writing that the origin of the Chinese Virus was from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It is not a zoonotic transmission from bats to humans in the Wild Life Market at Wuhan – a hypothesis peddled by China.
Firstly, virologists need to study the method of such transmissions in detail. Let me take a random example: As per “Fatal Herpesvirus Haemorrhagic Disease in Wild and Orphan Asian Elephants in Southern India”, published by the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 65 per cent of deaths of young Wild Asian Elephants have been attributed to haemorrhagic diseases associated with a novel DNA virus (EEHV) – whatever it means? Should we then conclude that this virus will be transmitted to the villagers living close to elephant habitats and elephant parks, and in times to come get transmitted to humans? Similarly of the 1.3 million species of mammals in the world with all the freedom to get infected by several billions of bacteria, fungi and viruses, who can say how many zoonotic transmissions to human beings can occur in natural form? If so, it should be certainly the beginning of the end of ‘Homo Sapiens’? The discovery would be of vital importance to the existence of the human race. Several mutant versions of SARS-CoV-2 virus have also emerged within a period of less than a year, which has made the Chinese virus highly infectious – ravenously gorging and slurping the human race with a rising toll, already over 3.5 million! In Vietnam, a combo variant of the UK and the Indian strains of the Chinese virus has been isolated among patients which is considered much more infectious than the rest.
Now let us presume that China is a righteous country with noble leaders. No doubt the assumption is ridiculously outrageous, but, still, stretch your imagination to start with that premise. All that China has to answer are the following questions.
Q1. The outbreak of SARS in November 2002 was also a coronavirus; the intermediate source was identified as the civet and the original source was traced to bats. Again, the animal to human transmission has been alleged to have infected initially food handlers who killed and cooked such animals in restaurants. Even in the present case it has been attributed to Wuhan Wildlife Market and the original source has been pinpointed as the bat. As the source in both the cases is the same, what remedial actions were taken between 2002 and 2019 to ensure that such transmissions do not take place?
Q2. It is obvious that the measures as taken by China if at all, were inadequate. Why did China not seek help from the WHO and other countries to prevent similar infections? Could it not have saved the world from this deadly pandemic?
Q3. As a responsible nation, does not China owe it to the world to ensure such things are not repeated?
Q4. Has China been transparent enough in sharing their findings on the origin of SARS 2002/03 with the international community? It raises doubts, whether it was also a product of research in a laboratory!
Q5. Even during the outbreak of SARS, Dr. Jiang Yanyong was a whistle-blower who was not paid heed to by the government. The government tried to cover up the track of the epidemic. The same narrative was repeated in the case of Covid-19 when Dr. Li Wenliang blew the whistle on 30 December 2019. In this case, he was reprimanded for spreading rumours. The government obfuscated the truth about human-to-human transmission from the world and also from its own people. Why did China not learn from its past experience? How can the world trust China for the third time when it has let them down twice already?
Q6. Chinese Military Scientists and Senior Public Health Officials had written a paper on such viruses as a ‘New Era of Genetic Weapons’ in 2015. It is understood that Military Scientists also carry out military research in WIV along with their civilian counterparts. Was China actually following up on the paper in WIV by the use of bats?
Q7. The first case of Covid-19 infection had taken place anytime between 1 November and 10 December 2019. The South China Morning Post pins it down to 17 November 2019, entailing the real infection that could have occurred a couple of days earlier. What about the three officials of WIV, who were admitted to the hospital with symptoms akin to Covid-19 infection in November 2019? It was only on 9 January 2020 that the WHO said that China had reported an outbreak of a novel coronavirus; it was the first report by WHO to the world. Why did China not take the issue seriously and alert the world community and take the WHO on board to nip the virus in the bud?
Q8. Dr. Li Wenliang let the cat out of the bag and posted about the mystery illness on WeChat on 30 December 2019. Why did China take 23 more days to quarantine Wuhan when it knew that the deadly infection had already been unleashed in the city?
Q9. The first international patient of Covid-19 was detected in Thailand on 13 January 2020. The WHO gave an innocuous statement on 14 January 2020 that limited human to human infection is possible. China took another six days to announce it. Wuhan with an 11 million population was shut down on 23 January 2020. Hubei province with a 60 million population was locked down on 24 January 2020. From the end of January 2020 till the end of March 2020, more than 430,000 people had flown out of China to the US alone. Just imagine how many would have travelled from China to other parts of the world. International airlines continued to operate from China to the rest of the world even after the domestic flights were stopped. Why did China delay the announcement? Why was its seriousness not communicated to the world? Why did not China invite experts from the WHO and from across the world to initiate a global response to contain the virus?
Q10. Dr. Li Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist working in WIV who had fled China in April 2020 says in no uncertain terms that the COVID-19 originated in WIV. Would the Chinese Government like to comment on it?
Q11. Caixin Global, an independent Chinese media revealed that Chinese laboratories had identified a mystery virus by late December 2019. It is understood that they were ordered to stop testing, suppress the news and destroy samples. Would the Chinese Government like to comment on these claims?
Q12. As per a recent study by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Birger Sorensen, the Chinese Virus was manipulated in a lab. It was created by Chinese scientists and later reverse engineering was done to cover up its tracks. Further, the structure of positively charged amino acids has been artificially tampered with to make them very infectious. Such structures do not occur in the natural form. The study appears to be a ‘smoking gun; otherwise, China would not be reluctant to cooperate with the team from the WHO. Can the Chinese Government explain?
Q13. How does one explain the Covid-19 breakout across the globe in 220 countries and territories, which is counting at 175 million with 3.7 million deaths but in the whole of China it is less than 0.11 million (109693) with 4,905 deaths (purely a Chinese approximation though)? Leaving aside the Hubei Province whose capital is Wuhan, mysteriously, the four other provinces Guangdong, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, and Zhejiang have recorded confirmed cases ranging from 2,431 to 1,364, with deaths ranging from 13 to 1, respectively. All the remaining cases were from Hubei province which approximately works out to less than a lakh confirmed cases and deaths less than 4,870. Remarkable! Isn’t it? It obviously means that China hid the crucial facts from the WHO and the world at large. Does a doubt arise whether it had been done deliberately to cripple the world with the bioweapon?
Q14. The first infection was reported at the end of 2019 and the WHO team could come to China only in January 2021. Why did China delay giving permission for the visit of the team from the WHO by over a year?
Q15. The entire exercise by the team from the WHO to investigate the origin of Covid-19 ended without any conclusions due to China’s non-cooperative attitude. Firstly, China tried to put off the visit of the team, delayed their clearances and visas, and lastly ensured raw data and biological and blood samples of the initial patients were not made available to the team. What is China’s purpose and why are they adopting such an indifferent disposition and callous attitude towards such a serious issue that has claimed over 3.7 million deaths across 220 countries and territories?
Q16. When Australia demanded independent investigations into the origin of Covid-19, China suspended all activities of the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue. China also suspended beef imports and levied huge tariffs on Australian barley. Does China understand that Australia was airing the feelings of the whole world ravaged by the pandemic, and it is in the interest of the human race that the mystery that surrounds the origin of the pandemic is discovered? If China is innocent, they should be as much concerned to know the origin of the pandemic and welcome the Australian proposal. Does it have something to hide?
Q17. The WHO declared on 30 January 2020 that the Covid-19 was a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’. Even at this point in time, it did not recommend any travel restrictions to and from China. After more than a month on 11 March 2020, the WHO declared it as a pandemic after it had spread to 114 countries. Obviously, China did not disclose to them the full impact of the severity of the disease allowing it spread worldwide. China not only delayed its announcement but also gave selective information to the WHO, ensuring delay in declaring it as a pandemic.
Q18. Even now China is glib about the origins of the pandemic. Is it possible that the leak from WIV was not accidental, but a cold and calculated plan to use it as a bio-weapon and win the Third World War?
China, don’t you feel even now that you have to take the world community into confidence? 175 million infections, over 3.7 million deaths across 220 countries and territories; millions of enterprises have bitten dust; a billion impoverished and over 4 billion have been adversely affected directly or indirectly by the onslaught of Covid-19. Who should be held accountable for the apocalypse? China, please come out clean!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are personal.
Lt Gen PG Kamath (Retd), served in the Indian Army for four decades and retired as Commandant, Army War College, Mhow.
