Origin of Covid 19: Natural or China made?

On May 26th, The US president Joe Biden ordered an investigation by intelligence agencies into the origin of Corona virus to clarify whether is it natural or manmade in any laboratory. At the inception of spread of Covid-19 across of the world, Donald Trump, the then US president, called it as ‘Chinese virus’. Even if some scientist were sceptic about the ‘laboratory leek narrative’ in the case of origin of Covid19, the Chinese authorities reiterated the least possibility of laboratory leak theory and persisted on natural occurrence theory. China firstly elucidated that the virus is most likely come from Wuhan market where animal meat is sold and nowthey claim the virus may come from the foreign countries through the imported food items. However, many scientists from different nations other than China are suspicious that the virus may be leaked form Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). China’s hesitance to the investigators of World Health Organization and their reluctance to give the data push us to think that suspicion may be true.

Many clues make us doubtful that the novel corona virus (Sars-Cov-2) may be man-made and it is most likely to leak from WIV. Firstly, the previous virus induced epidemics, for instance SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), had some similarities in the characteristics of its genome whereas in the case of Sars-Cov-2, it has no similarities with the precious viruses that affected the human being before. Current corona’s high infectivity and spreading tendency is attributed to its peculiarity that it contains four amino acids in the spike protein and that is why some scientist believe in lab leak theory of origin of Covid 19.

Secondly, the three scientists from WIV had been admitted in hospital showing signs of virus disease in November 2019 itself and the first case of Sars-Cov-2 was reported at Wuhan in China in December only. Wall street journal, a leading daily newspaper in the US, has reported  that event in detail. The journal claims that it owns full details about the above mentioned three scientists including their duration of illness and admission of hospital. The journal now wants a comprehensive, intensive and impartial investigation into the origin of the Sars Cov-2.

Thirdly, one young doctor in Wuhan named as Le Wenliang had warned the Chinese people about the coming epidemic publicly using the social media platform at the beginning of outbreak of the virus in December itself. Instead of treating as a hero, the Chinese government punished him citing the reason of making the people afraid about an uncertain epidemic. Wenliang is supposedly died as suffering from the virus. His clandestine death also increases the doubt among the international community other than the Chinese whether the Sars-Cov-2 be a lab leaked one.

Further, the safety issue about the WIV had been detected by the US scientists and investigators before the outbreak of Sars-Cov-2 itself when they inspected it in 2018. The WIV is operating the Bio Safety Level-4 (BSL-4) facility. After inspecting the WIV, the US inspectors commented that institute is lacking the appropriately trained professionals to handle the laboratory. However, the Chinese Government did not respond positively to the warning of the US inspectors and they did not take due remedial measures to solve the issue of lack of expert scientists.

Actually, World Health Organization (WHO) had released an investigation report about the origin of the Sars-Cov-2 in March 30 and it was once again revised in April 6. The report rejects any possibility of the lab leak narrative and instead, it persists on natural spillover postulation. This report is not reliable because Dr. Daszak who is a self-declared advocate of natural spillover theory was included in the inquiry team. Also, Dr. Daszak is financial stakeholder of WIV laboratory experimentation. Then how can we trust the recently published investigation report of WHO?

The lack of regulatory mechanism, supposedly, is the reason to the leakage of the virus from the WIV. In 1972, a body namely ‘Biological and Toxin Weapon Convention’ (BWC) had formed to curb the exploitations and detect the deficiencies of the virology related experimentation centers across the world. BWC, however, can be compared to the lion without teeth. It has no system to check whether the signatories comply its prohibition and it has no power to penalize the one who violate its provision. This shortcoming of BWC had been undergone to the discussion in many of its five yearly review conferences. Nevertheless, the state parties always declined to find a suitable solution to the deficiencies of WBC mechanisms. This pandemic situation must make the international community be awakening to prevent the exploitations being held in the label of virology related experimentation.