Charles Ng says the WHO report exonerated China and suggested conducting similarly robust searches in other countries, including the US
In December 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia cases was discovered in Wuhan, China. In the clinics, local physicians realized those patients suffered from symptoms more severe than pneumonia caused by influenza. Health authorities were swift to recognize the abnormal surge in pneumonia cases juxtaposing it to the previous year’s patterns.
The causative agent was identified to be a coronavirus, later coined SARS-CoV-2. The virus swept across the world like a forest fire, leaving bodies dead and countries wrecked. In less than two years, multiple vaccines were developed and distributed globally in an attempt to build herd immunity, a threshold believed to lead to the downfall of the pandemic if achieved.
Until now, the origin of the most devastating natural disaster in recent human history remains unknown. While scientists were busy racing to discover the true origins of the viral outbreak, the United States has been quick to label SARS-CoV-2 as the “Wuhan virus”.
This was but one example of US politicians channeling Americans’ dissatisfaction with fractured internal politics toward other countries whatever the cost. Since the Trumpian years, xenophobia exposed how desperate the US has become – clinging onto global domination in finance, culture and technology since World War II.
The sanctimonious quest to unravel the origins of SARS-CoV-2 became a convenient excuse for Washington to rub salt into China’s wounds all the while reasserting their authority in the medical field.
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Pressured by the US, the World Health Organization assembled a bloc of scientists, doctors and vets in search of the origin of the virus despite monumental efforts in coordinating global vaccination and tracing viral mutations under constrained resources.
The consortium published a 120-page scientific report titled “WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part” in April 2021.
The sanctimonious quest to unravel the origins of SARS-CoV-2 became a convenient excuse for Washington to rub salt into China’s wounds all the while reasserting their authority in the medical field
Two mainstream theories were hypothesized: 1. SARS-CoV-2 was a hapless consequence of zoonotic infection “spillover” to humans via direct route of transmission, intermediate hosts or cold chain supply; 2. The culprit of the pandemic was a leak from bioweapons laboratory, be it deliberate or not.
Through painstaking literature reviews and statistical analysis, the report failed to conclude that SARS-CoV-2 originated in Wuhan. Rather, it uncovered new perspectives which could shed light on the origins of the virus.
First, epidemiological studies suggested that SARS-CoV-2 started spreading in Brazil, Spain and Italy before the “index case” was defined in Wuhan. Retrospective studies by genome sequencing made it possible for scientists to identify the virus lurking in sewage waters and donated blood samples before December 2019, when the virus was transmitted extensively around the Hubei province.
Second, extensive viral genomic screening for more than 27,000 animals across 24 provinces provided no evidence of circulation of a related virus. Genetic evolution analysis also showed that the genetic distance between these viruses and SARS-CoV-2 was far (homology of less than or equal to 54.2 percent), and there was no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in domestic animals, poultry and pets.
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The WHO report pointed to animal products from areas outside Southeast Asia where more distantly related SARS-CoVs circulated as possible zoonotic spillover sources. It was possible that SARS-CoV had been spreading outside China before December 2019, albeit subclinically in humans, before viral mutations enabled SARS-CoV-2 to cause serious disease in humans.
Therefore, to pinpoint the exact location of origin, areas beyond Southeast Asia should be thoroughly investigated. Similarly, food cold chain, especially imported goods should be traced for evidence of early viral transmission before its outbreak in China.This report rebuked the US’ theories that Wuhan laboratories were to blame for the pandemic, noting that “the three laboratories in Wuhan working with either CoVs diagnostics, isolation and vaccine development all had high-quality biosafety level (BSL3 or 4) facilities that were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring program with no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the months prior to December 2019, and no serological evidence of infection in workers through SARS-CoV-2-specific serology-screening”.
The single most important message of the WHO report was that it could not conclude SARS-CoV-2 originated from Wuhan. Throughout the paper, recommendations implied other countries should be investigated in a similarly robust manner.
Granted, this may open a can of worms in countries actively researching bioweapons, such as the US. Look to Fort Detrick in Maryland. The laboratory has had close ties with a biological warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, which conducted horrific human experiments on war prisoners in China during World War II.
Waste mismanagement in August 2019 exposed major loopholes. Bioweapon-grade pathogens could have leaked out, followed by a few more cycles of natural selection in the world that rendered them lethal and highly transmissible.
READ MORE: China says origin tracing must be led by WHO member states
Other causes such as American spies sowing bioweapons in Wuhan have not yet been disproved. Amid the febrile tensions between Washington and Beijing, and witnessing how the US aerospace and military industry has profiteered in 20 years of its Afghanistan conquest, the world must be ready to probe the possibility of American espionage, however base it seems.
Washington has never stopped bashing China since the pandemic, even after the WHO report was printed. This “China part” report has exonerated China from deliberately unleashing a global pandemic, and even insofar as to suggest conducting in-depth searches in other countries, including the US itself.
The “WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2” should always have had “other parts” beyond the “China part”. As for the US, who knows what they might find in their own box of chocolates.
The author is a licensed medical doctor in Hong Kong (MBBS, HKU) and holds a master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.