The global pandemic has been out for more than a year, and countries around the world have been “chicken-and-egg” by the pandemic. Four months after the U.S. federal and state governments promoted free universal vaccination with wartime mobilization efforts, 60% of the U.S. adult population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. It is now estimated that by July 4, 70 percent of the U.S. population will have been vaccinated. In recent months, the economy and schools have gradually reopened across the U.S. Many people were worried that this would bring a new wave of outbreaks, but it turns out that new infections, hospital admissions, deaths, diagnosis rates, and other indicators are rapidly and steadily declining in all states, and are now back to the levels of last spring. The vaccine is proving to be powerful.
Sooner or later, the vaccine will completely defeat the plague. But we still have no conclusion about the origin of the virus and the responsibility of the Chinese government for causing the epidemic. The World Health Organization sent experts to China earlier in the year to investigate, but the Chinese authorities did not cooperate transparently, and the experts did not have access to key data, leaving the report based on one-sided claims by Chinese officials. When the report was released in March, even WHO Secretary General Tan Desai, who has long been considered a friend of Beijing, admitted that the investigation was not comprehensive, saying that the hypothesis that the virus originated from an accidental leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research could not be ruled out until a more thorough investigation was conducted.
In the two months since the report was released, a growing number of scientists and media, as well as national officials, have publicly criticized the report as unacceptable for dismissing the laboratory leak hypothesis in the face of incomplete investigations and incomplete data. Earlier this month, 18 of the world’s leading biologists, in a statement published in the prestigious journal Science, called for a more in-depth investigation and emphasized that the laboratory origin theory should not be dismissed lightly. Credible media outlets such as the U.S. television news program 60 Minutes Current Affairs and National Public Radio have provided in-depth coverage of the laboratory origin hypothesis of the virus. Fauci, a popular virologist who has led the fight against the epidemic in both the Trump and Biden administrations, recently said in an interview that he still has not been convinced that viruses evolve in nature.
This week, the Wall Street Journal published an exclusive that the U.S. intelligence system has long been aware of three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research who contracted an unknown disease similar to the new coronavirus infection in November 2019, which Chinese authorities have not been able to announce.
At the beginning of the plague outbreak, Chinese officials balked at the idea that the virus came from a market animal, but never presented evidence of what the animal was. The Chinese government also failed to provide the investigation team with key data from the early days of the plague. These actions by the Chinese government only add to the suspicion that it is hiding something.
The Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, which is responsible for the highly dangerous, highly guarded “gain of function” research, collects viruses from nature and allows them to multiply and mutate rapidly in a controlled laboratory environment until they become capable of infecting humans, helping scientists understand the mechanisms by which viruses become capable of infecting humans.
With this type of research, it is easy for viruses to escape the laboratory through accidental infection of staff. These accidents have happened in various countries. The U.S. government began tightening controls on this type of research in 2014. Many U.S. scientists then collaborated with Chinese scientists, particularly at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, to receive large research grants to continue this type of research in Chinese laboratories.
Early on, two years before the plague, U.S. diplomats in China warned of the security risks at the Wuhan Institute. After the outbreak, the Chinese government, the Western scientists involved in this research, and others began by vigorously denying the laboratory leak hypothesis, failing to provide convincing data, and deliberately conflating the hypothesis with “biochemical weapons” conspiracy theories. This hasty denial and discrediting is suspicious.
It is outrageous enough that the Chinese government concealed the epidemic when it first broke out, to the detriment of the world. If China is so sure that the virus did not originate in a laboratory leak, then the most effective way to clear China’s name would be to allow international experts to conduct a more thorough investigation without hindrance, and to disclose all key data. If Beijing keeps refusing, it will only convince more and more people that the virus really originated in a lab leak.
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