We Need to Demand Honest Answers Regarding the Origin of Covid-19

After the current pandemic of Covid-19 was declared in March, 2020, the origin of the virus became a matter of wide debate, within the scientific community and in the public domain, but authorities in China, where the first instances of the virus were detected, quickly claimed that the primary source of infection was the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, where presumably, the virus was somehow transferred from animals to human beings. Their explanation was never fully believable, and it seems even less so now, more than two years later.

If one seeks to arrive at a more thorough understanding of the situation, it is necessary to acknowledge a stark, glaring truth: namely, that standing in the same Chinese city as the Huanan Seafood Market is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where experiments with coronaviruses derived from bats have been going on for a number of years. In particular, it is suspected that experiments, perhaps intended to increase the potential harm of such viruses (known as "gain-of-function") and supported by money received from the government of the United States, have been carried out at the institute.

When Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (part of the National Institutes of Health, which supplied the American money for the experiments), was questioned, in May, 2021, at a hearing in Congress, he blithely denied, in a suitably cunning fashion, that the extensive handling of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could be defined as "gain-of-function," but his denial was not credible. In both tone and essence, his reply had a sound of falseness.

In July, 2022, most Western leaders have decided, heedlessly and incorrectly, that "the pandemic is over," and are not interested in discovering the origin of the virus, but they would be wise to think differently. Knowing how the pandemic actually began could provide us with useful information about how, in the years ahead, it will play out. If Covid-19 is, indeed, a product of Chinese science, enhanced with an ability of overwhelming contagion, then it would reasonably follow that only if we unite in taking the broadest, harshest approach can we hope to succeed in restraining its progress.

One thing is especially telling: while Western leaders have chosen a policy of carelessness toward the virus, doing nothing to hinder its growth and telling their citizens that it no longer constitutes a danger, the government of China has chosen, so far, to actively contend with the virus, electing to pursue a range of extreme measures whenever required, including the total shutdown of entire cities. Could it be that Chinese leaders are responding, if only out of self-interest, to desperate conditions that Western leaders refuse to address?

If Chinese leaders continue to act against Covid-19 with greater strength than the weak leaders in the West, China will achieve, and will probably maintain, a distinct advantage in the world. The citizens of China will be safer and healthier than Western citizens, and therefore will be able to deal more effectively with the challenges of the future: a future in which the West will be brutally subdued by unending waves of heavy infection. Perhaps because the pandemic started in China, it appears that China, as a nation, knows the virus must be urgently opposed, and is not willing to be beaten.

Based on what little can be discerned about the source of the virus, one can venture a rational guess that it was created, purposely or otherwise, in a Chinese laboratory, and then escaped. Are the authorities in China (and elsewhere) lying to us about the ill-fated happenings in Wuhan? Are they trying to cover up a grievous mistake? In a pandemic that has already sickened and killed many millions of people, and still threatens to bring untold suffering to many millions more, we need to demand honest answers regarding the origin of Covid-19.