The Covid genesis story is getting curiouser and curiouser even as optimism about a fair conclusion on this critically important matter fades. There was a lag in the way the international community tried to search for the origin of what was prima facie a lab-induced virus, the “genie” that was out of the bottle sometime in late 2019. Americans were stunned by its impact right in their mega cities while the UN and WHO were delayed in their responses. The global body sent a scientific team to Wuhan to probe its origin but failed to fix responsibility. A team of British scientists now say they have evidence to confirm that Chinese researchers created the deadly virus in a lab in Wuhan and that they tried to cover up their tracks by engaging in reverse engineering to create the impression that it evolved from bats. They stress that Covid19 virus has no credible natural ancestor and was a “creation” of the Chinese. These Chinese researchers, it is noted, have been “silenced” or made to “disappear” by the wily Chinese establishment. “The laws of physics mean you cannot have four positively charged amino acids in a row (as in this case). The only way you can get this is if you artificially manufacture it,” these British scientists reason. This raises issues of moral codes binding the global scientific community.
The apprehension has been that the virus “escaped” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology where scientists were engaged in experiments bordering on biological warfare for the future. Donald Trump as US president was taken aback by the sweep of the virus in his urban sprawls that attention got deflected from the real issue of the virus’s origin. Belatedly, his successor Joe Biden has set a three-month deadline this past week for the American scientific intelligence community to arrive at an opinion on how this virus came about. The UN can do its job even at this late hour. But China with its hold over the Security Council is bound to put hurdles in the way of any UN effort unless there’s going to be more intense pressure from the US to take the investigations forward and fix guilt on where things have gone wrong. Punitive measures must follow. This is important not just to face the present critical global situation but also to act as a deterrent in future against attempts that put human existence at grave risk. A country that has caused unprecedented deaths and suffering and has virtually killed the economy should have been made a pariah by the international community.
