COVID ORIGIN IN WUHAN—-NO REPORT FROM WHO

The World Health Organization  (WHO ) was finally permitted to go to China to study the origins of the world pandemic caused by Covid 19.  Sadly, that organization had to wait more than a year after the discovery of the disease, its world wide transmission and the deaths of more than two million people to make the trip.  Though the WHO claimed they had  cooperation from the Chinese, the promised  interim  report which has to be agreed to by both the Chinese government and the WHO has been “delayed”. We can assume that there are “problems”.  The delay stirred up a response from concerned western scientist.  

An open letter of 26 western scientists complained that due to the constraints placed on scientists by the Chinese, it was “all but impossible “ for the WHO “Wuhan Mission” (January-February 2021)  to conduct a full investigation of the origins of the worldwide plague  and they feared it would  be fatally compromised by “political considerations” since both China and the WHO had to agree to any conclusions.  ( This reminds me of Galileo’s painful pact with the 17th Century RC church inquisition  regarding the centrality of the sun in the solar system).   

A soft pedaling, non-controversial report by “Nature” ( Feb 26,  2021 “Where did covid come from? Five mysteries that remain.” by Smitei Mallapaty) based on interviews with four of the actual lead investigators tries to hew to a “don’t anger the Chinese” line,  but it’s reporting seems to have raised many more questions than it answers. The critical information essential for preventing a repeat of this world wide human and economic disaster such as  “where, how and why”  remain according to the “Nature”article “unresolved mysteries”. 

But we do know a great deal already.  Let’s summarize the non controversial findings. Most scientists agree that the virus originated in bats. As I blogged months back, bats viruses probably evolved in caves where they were transmitted  by airborne means like measles, tuberculosis and small pox. The bats which harbor this species of virus do not occur in Wuhan, but are found much further south inhabiting caves in southern China.  It is likely that another animal species may have been infected by the virus.Badger-ferrets, and pangolins have been implicated as animals which may have been infected by the bat virus. 

These wild animals are used as traditional foods by Chinese. They are  traditionally trapped in the wild in southern China (or raised in cages ) and then transported north to Wuhan where they were sold as wild meats in a Chinese “wet market”. There, the animals were often kept alive in cages until purchased for food at which point they were slaughtered and sold. 

It is these circumstances which appear to be the most likely way in which the virus passed from animal to human host. Furthermore,   it was in Wuhan were the first case of the virus was detected in early December of 2019.  

A Chinese Virology lab where Chinese scientists study and collect samples of bat viruses is also located in Wuhan. It is not a far away from the Wuhan wet market. Most scientists seem to agree that the lab was not the likely source of the outbreak. 

Another fact that is undisputed is that Chinese scientists and physicians in Wuhan who early in the outbreak raised the alarm of human to human transmission of the virus were summarily silenced and forced to publish retractions then they were  punished by the Chinese government in Beijing.   

Another fact is that the Chinese were less than transparent about these late 2019 cases than they should have been. The NY Times and other western media noted at the time that suspicions of purposeful under-reporting were justified in the Covid 19 pandemic, since China had a history of “slow walking” such reports which were damaging to Beijing’s reputation ,  (See “SARS epidemic: China virus badly underreported in Beijing”,   NY Times April 17, 2003). 

The WHO was also complicit in this matter dragging its feet in   a declaration  to officially call the Wuhan outbreak a “ pandemic” until well after the virus had spread world wide. 

Another undisputed fact is that Wuhan, a large city with excellent transportation facilities and well served by regular Chinese international flights was closed down during the outbreak of the virus in that city. Movement of Wuhan inhabitants to other parts of China were interdicted.   Flights to other parts of China were prohibited,   But the Chinese government in Beijing, permitted international flights to California, Milano, and elsewhere.