The witch-hunt against China must stop

By Mustafa Hyder Sayed

CFP

As Washington ups the ante on the “Wuhan lab-leak theory” in an attempt to attribute the COVID-19 pandemic to China, it is worth pausing and seeing what the recent scientific assessments of this theory are and what scientists studying them are suggesting. Western media reporting on this issue has essentially been a repetition of the U.S. government’s claims accusing China of being a perpetrator of the pandemic. Original, independent and objective reporting has been rare.

An article in the leading science journal, Nature.com, headlined “The Covid lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know” provides new insights into the big question of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the outset, the article states that “lab leaks have never caused an epidemic, they have resulted in small outbreaks involving well-documented viruses.” 

It further goes on to state that “most infectious disease researchers agree that the most probable scenario is that the virus evolved naturally and spread from a bat either directly to a person or through an intermediate animal.” Kristian Anderson, a virologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California concluded that a lab leak was “improbable” for a variety of different reasons, but particularly because there was no evidence of genetic manipulation, which would suggest it to be man-made.

A major reason why the “lab-leaks” theory continues to be trumpeted is that there is no conclusive evidence, which is why it remains a debate and/or a controversy. “Although the resurgent chatter may suggest new clues or proof, the inverse is in fact true. It is the persistent absence of any convincing evidence either for or against the theory that has prompted calls for more investigation,” writes Adam Taylor, a reporter for the Washington Post, in a May 27, 2021 article. 

Similarly, a CNN article that appeared on August 6 titled “Intel agencies scour reams of genetic data from Wuhan lab in Covid origins hunt” stated that senior U.S. intelligence officials tasked by President Joe Biden to investigate the origin of the pandemic were split when it came to the “lab-leak” theory. 

The article also interviewed John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence (the apex U.S. intelligence body that leads the work of 17 intelligence agencies), where he said, “Obviously the more, the better. But we’ve had extraordinary insight into this topic for many months, much more than has been declassified. Pretending we didn’t is political theater and a classic example of a politician trying to buy time by using the intelligence community as a scapegoat.” Interestingly, the absence of a consensus in the U.S. intelligence community is not visible in the allegations against China by the U.S. government or reporting by Western media.

People line up to get tested for COVID-19 in the U.S., August 9, 2021. /CFP

This June, a study called “An ancient viral epidemic involving host coronavirus interacting genes more than 20,000 years ago in East Asia” was published in Current Biology, a noted and peer-reviewed journal. The study revealed that “42 coronavirus interacting proteins (CoV-VIPs) in East Asian populations interacted with an ancient coronavirus about 900 generations ago – that is, approximately 25,000 years ago.” 

David Enard, from the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, who is a collaborative scientist in this study, told the New York Times that, “It should make us worry … What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations.” Again, the evidence from this study indicates that the origin of the coronavirus is not recent and/or linked to a particular country or location, but has been prevalent in the world, East Asia in particular, for thousands of years.

As the Delta variant of the COVID-19 pandemic brings new waves of infections around the globe, testing the efficacy of vaccines and wreaking havoc among already shaken public health care systems in many countries, it is imperative that leading economies like the United States and EU stalwarts such as Germany and France reach out to China to develop a united front against what is currently the biggest challenge to human civilization. It is the responsibility of these big powers to look at the big picture and prioritize saving human lives above all other things. 

While talking to The Australian last week, Bill Gates said that the controversy over the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic did not “change the need for masks and vaccines,” reminding the international community to keep their eye on the ball, by addressing the urgent needs and challenges posed by the pandemic. 

There is still time to show leadership and foster international cooperation regarding challenges, including but not limited to the pandemic, that are shared and universal. Addressing them is in the shared interest of all major countries, despite political differences.

Mustafa Hyder Sayed is the executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute.