When President Trump suggested last week that the coronavirus might have originated in China’s Wuhan lab, he was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. But considering how little we know about COVID-19, where it originated, and how it became a global pandemic, as well as China’s repeated attempts to suppress information and lie about the virus, it’s essential to ask: When it comes to the coronavirus, is there any such thing as a wrong question?
Here’s what we do know: China lies. A lot. In fact, a recent Department of Homeland Security report concluded that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s communist regime hid the early spread of the coronavirus so it could hoard medical equipment in preparation for the outbreak while the rest of the world sat unprepared. We also know that the numbers China have released have been far from accurate.
So, not only is it reasonable to view anything and everything China says about COVID-19 through a lens of skepticism and scrutiny, it is absolutely essential. That includes China’s swift denial that its Wuhan lab, which was conveniently studying different coronavirus strains, had anything to do with the outbreak in the region.
We also know that the Wuhan lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses found in bats, had serious safety and management weaknesses, according to cables sent to State Department officials back in 2018. Indeed, U.S. officials were specifically worried that the lab’s studies could result in a new SARS-like pandemic. So, is it really that outlandish to wonder whether China’s Wuhan lab lost control of the COVID-19 virus and accidentally released it into the world?
“Accidentally” being the key word. It’s important to note that questioning whether the Wuhan lab was somehow responsible for this outbreak is different than suggesting the coronavirus is a Chinese-manufactured bioweapon. There is no evidence to support the allegation that China intentionally unleashed the coronavirus, nor do China’s subsequent actions support that theory.
But we do have “enormous evidence” that the coronavirus has ties to the Wuhan lab, according to both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has insisted otherwise, arguing that the virus’s genetics strongly indicate that it evolved in nature, which means that “it was in the wild to begin with.”
These conflicting opinions confirm that there’s a lot we simply do not know about the coronavirus. Without a better understanding of how this virus originated and why it spread, we will not know how to prevent this kind of global calamity from reoccurring in the future.
