Laboratory accident or not? The origin of Corona remains a mystery

Geneva, Washington It happened at the end of 2019. At that time, infections with the new corona virus first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan. At least two laboratories – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) – were researching coronaviruses in bats at the time.

The food market is also located in Wuhan, from where the Covid-19 pathogen eventually spread worldwide.

Did the ominous virus from one of the labs find its way onto the market? First, investigators from the World Health Organization (WHO) classified this “laboratory theory” as “extremely unlikely”. The WHO later admitted that it was “premature” to rule out a laboratory accident. However, China is still obstructing enlightenment today.

US President Joe Biden ordered an investigation by his secret services in spring 2021. This week, the US government made new allegations that a laboratory accident could have triggered the corona pandemic.

Answering the questions of how the virus spread to humans and how the corona catastrophe unfolded are key to better defense against new pandemics. “We can all work together to reduce the risk of something like this happening again,” said World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The US has the most resources of any Western democracy to trace the origins of the virus. Every detail from Washington is therefore being closely monitored.

What is the US government’s conclusion?

“Our authorities continue to have no consensus on the origin of the Covid virus,” the White House said. 18 American authorities are involved in the investigation, including the various secret services and ministries with a secret service department.

Our authorities continue to have no consensus on the origin of the Covid virus. White House

They’re investigating whether the virus arose naturally through human contact with infected animals, or whether the outbreak was the result of a laboratory accident. To date, they have not come to any clear conclusions, as can be read in this summary.

An interim report that reached US President Biden in September 2021 showed a split in the authorities. “We assume that two hypotheses are plausible: first, natural exposure to an infected animal, and second, an incident in the laboratory,” it said.

The vast majority therefore supports the assumption that the virus is of natural origin. But at least two authorities tend to originate in the laboratory: The Director of the US Federal Police FBI, Christopher Wray, admitted in an interview on February 28, 2023 that his agency had “assumed for some time” that the pandemic was “most likely triggered by a potential laboratory accident”. had been. The US Department of Energy had previously announced that it considered a laboratory accident to be possible.

The secret services seem to agree on one thing: the virus was probably not developed by the Chinese government as a biological weapon. The report is not available to the public; the US Congress has requested access to the documents.

How is China obstructing the Enlightenment?

The relationship between the United States and China is in bad shape anyway, and the dispute over the laboratory theory is putting additional strain on relations. China has vehemently denied the accusation of a laboratory accident and accuses the USA of a propaganda battle. Washington and the WHO have criticized Beijing for not voluntarily providing information on the outbreak of the corona virus.

A drastic example illustrates Beijing’s blockade policy: According to the US secret services, at least three scientists from Wuhan were hospitalized with symptoms weeks before the first officially reported Covid cases in China. To date, Beijing has not allowed any surveys.

>> Read here: Taiwan, Russia and new sanctions: These are the five biggest points of contention between China and the USA

But even with full cooperation, it would be unlikely to find the true origin of the pathogen. For example, the first transmissions of the Ebola virus and the HI virus have not been clearly clarified, even after decades of research.

Are secret services up to the task?

There are doubts about that. “They’re not particularly proficient at digging through global health datasets,” an insider told the Washington Post. In addition, the topic is often politically exploited in the USA. The origin of the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen was only seriously debated months after the outbreak.

US media, think tanks and experts had long dismissed the possible origin in the laboratory as a conspiracy theory. This was also due to the fact that ex-President Donald Trump used the laboratory theory in a targeted manner during the election campaign to create sentiment against China and to distract from his own misconduct in the pandemic.

donald trump

The former US president used the laboratory theory to create anti-China sentiment.

(Photo: AP)

Trump called Sars-CoV-2 the “China virus” and claimed that the pathogen originated in a laboratory – without ever presenting any evidence of this. Incumbent President Biden, in turn, only commissioned an investigation when a group of scientists called for it.

What does the WHO say?

Representatives of the World Health Organization do not give a uniform picture, and the WHO phrases are sometimes irritating. In January and February 2021, a WHO investigative commission carried out on-site investigations in Wuhan. The commission then classified a chain of transmission of the pathogen from animals such as bats via other animals to humans as a “probable to very probable” variant of origin.

They rejected the thesis that the virus came from a laboratory as “extremely unlikely”. The commission included virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and other experts, and was headed by the Dane Peter Ben Embarek. However, China’s authorities denied the WHO Commission full insight on site.

bat

There are numerous bat species and only a few are infected with corona viruses, which can also be dangerous to humans.

(Photo: AP)

The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros, later stressed that it was “premature” to rule out the laboratory theory. “I’ve worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen.” In October 2021, the WHO announced that a new team was to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. In June 2022, this team published a report. In it, the experts spoke out for further investigations, including those on possible laboratory leaks.

In order to be better prepared for future outbreaks, the WHO opened a center for pandemic awareness in Berlin on September 1, a kind of early warning system.

Why is the US itself being criticized?

Financial flows between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the American National Institutes of Health (NIH) are causing irritation. Intermediary was the nonprofit Eco Health Alliance, which directed a total of $3.4 million in grants through NIH to WIV in Wuhan between 2014 and 2019 to support bat coronavirus research.

Peter Daszak, the chairman of the Eco Health Alliance, personally thanked the former American chief immunologist Anthony Fauci in an email in April 2020 for rejecting the laboratory theory as “very unlikely” at the time.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives plan to summon Fauci as a witness later this year. They accuse him of trying to cover up US funding for the Wuhan experiments on bat coronaviruses.

First publication: September 5, 2021, 6:57 p.m., updated on March 1, 2023

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