Covid-19 Pandemic - Zoonotic or Bio-Warfare ?

Word Meanings:-

Gain of Function Reseach – Any field of medical research which tries to induce mutation(s) to a pathogen by artificial means to increase its pandemic-like capabilities, in order to assess / predict potent emerging infectious diseases & to develop vaccines and therapeutics against them.

Zoonotic – Transmission of pathogen from animals to humans

Anthropogenic – Man-made 

Back in February 2021, when the Government of India rejected the ‘Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty’, brought into force by New York based ‘United Nations General Assembly’ on January 22nd, 2021 under the aegis of Noble Peace Prize Winner Coalition “The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons”, I was curious as to know what actually the ‘Nuclear Doctrine of India’ is and why it seems to be less committed to ‘No 1st Use Policy’ than China.

The reason being more liberty in clause which describes under what circumstances India would use nuclear weapons, which is “Attack on Indian Forces with Chemical or Biological Weapons anywhere in the world.” Globally, the ‘Biological Weapons Convention’ (BWC) / ‘Biological & Toxin Weapons Convention’ (BTWC) effectively bans the biological & toxic weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and usage.

This brings me to the current ongoing scenario where a ‘Task Force’ has been authorised by the Government of USA to discern the origin of Covid-19 pathogen Sars-Cov-II within 90 days, i.e. whether it is zoonotic in nature or anthropogenic in nature. Its first mention was recorded in 2020 by ex – president of USA, Mr. Donald Trump, who alleged this notion on numerous occasions. 

HISTORY

The international medical community was shook to its roots in November 2019, when some cases of pneumonia like symptoms were reported with an unknown pathogen in “Wuhan city of Hubei province of the Mainland China.” Initially, it came into the knowledge of World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31, 2019.

On January 30, 2020, WHO declared it a global health emergency and on March 11th, 2020, the WHO declared it a global pandemic.

The 1st Covid-19 case in India was reported in Kerala’s Thrissur district on January 30th, 2020 and since then 172.6 million cumulative cases and a little more than 37.45 lac deaths have been recorded, making India the 2nd worst Covid-19 hit nation, both in terms of total cases & fatalities recorded.

China’s “Wuhan Institute of Virology, under Chinese Academy of Sciences” in ‘Wuchang District of Wuhan City in Hubei Province’ has become the epicentre of worldwide allegations regarding the origin of this pandemic. While the former has denied all the allegations, claiming them as ‘Western Propaganda’, there are still some unanswered questions which needed to be answered for the sake of humanity. It’s been 524 days since this virus has emerged and like a leech, it has literally sucked the lives out of people.

Where did this virus come from, what’s its source – a bat, a pangolin, a laboratory or a heavenly curse of the almighty? Out of all these, the “Zoonotic Origin from Bat” has been the most favourite ones of majority of scientists, experts, governments, etc, while the “Lab Leak Theory” was initially discarded as baseless due to lack of evidence(s) and when tried to put up the evidences, they were cleaned up impromptu.

Every whistleblower who tried to stand up for the truth was never seen again, social media websites barred the use of keywords like ‘Wuhan Virus’, let alone on ground reporting but various reports were dismissed as ‘Conspiracy Theories / Fake News’, bans; warnings & boycotts were faced by various media outlets who couldn’t just swallow this fishy ‘Zoonotic Theory’. Well, what else to expect from a country ranking 177th / 180 in “World Press Freedom Index 2021” by Paris based “Reporters Without Borders”. Donald Trump might be blunt in his speaking skills, but now his arguments seems to be logical after various whistleblowers have decided to unveil ‘behind the scenes’.

May 14th, 2021 - A group of 18 American scientists published a letter in the journal “Science” wherein they write and I quote “Yet more investigation is needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and a zoonotic spill over both remain viable.”

May 26th, 2021 – US president Joe Biden tasks the US Intelligence Community to take things forward & trace the source – “Was it an infected animal or we’re under some sort of bio-warfare?”

The so called ‘high security’ Wuhan Institute of Virology is the largest virus bank in Asia, having 1500+ strains of deadly viruses in crystallised forms. Interestingly, it’s just 5.5 km away from the ‘Huanan Seafood Market’, which was identified as the ‘Ground Zero’ by WHO. This lab’s dark history of shady experiments is sizeable:-

2005 – Native Chinese Horseshoe Bats to be natural reservoirs of SARS-like Coronavirus was claimed in a report published. (Zenodo)

2012 – Samples from an abandoned mine deep in South-West Yunnan Province were studied, where miners shovelling bat faeces had died to a mysterious pneumonia. The virus discovered was named: “RAT-G-13”.

2014 – Scientists of University of North Carolina collaborated with their counterparts in WIV, who were artificially trying to mutate this virus (RAT-G-13) via “Gain of Function Research”. USA although suspended the research work later on, but kept funding them.

US National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases Director, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. allotted a $3.4 million grant to a New York based health firm called, ‘Ecohealth Alliance’, which in turn paid WIV $598,500 (Rs 4.38 crores approximately) over the next 5 years to study the same virus.

In an e-mail from Ecohealth Alliance President, Peter Daszak to NIA&ID Director, Dr. A. Fauci, “the former thanked the later for publicly standing up & stating that the scientific evidences supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from bat-to-human spill over, not a lab release from the WIV.”

If this still appears to be a coincidence, then how come B. H. Obama, in 2014, hinted the proactive readiness due to the possibility of an upcoming pandemic exactly 5 years ahead similar to Spanish-Flu, which later proved to be true.

2018 – WIV released a paper claiming villagers residing nearby bat caves carry antibodies against the bat Coronavirus, indicating the possibility of transmission to humans.

November 2019 – 3 employees of WIV fell sick as per US Intelligence reports, “3 workers sought hospital care & consisted symptoms of both COVID-19 & common seasonal illness.”

December 2019 – Novel Coronavirus was detected in 2 patients, whose samples were sent to Dr. Shi Zhengli (Director of WIV), who stated that the Sars-Cov-II is 96% identical to the one they’ve been studying since years.

January 3rd 2020 – Due to cluster blooming of cases, China’s National Health Commission issued guidelines to not publish any sort of information regarding the same, non-compliance to which, can cause what consequences in a radicalized communist regime is something which I don’t need to tell you.

Dr. Li Wenliang (Ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital) sent out warnings on a close re-chatting group informing his colleagues about the severity of the same, but was summoned & silenced by the ‘Public Safety Bureau’ in Wuhan by signing a forced letter of apology for spreading rumours & misinformation.

Following are the whistleblowers silenced in Communist China:-

• Xu Zhangrun (Professor)

• Zhang Zhan, Li Zehua, Fang Bin (Citizen Journalists) (images respectively)

• Chen Qiushi & Xu Zhiyong (Activists) (images respectively)

One of the most reputed journals in the field of medical sciences, “The Lancet” had rejected the lab leak theory, after which it was almost acceptable everywhere that bats are responsible for changing our lives once and for all. 18 months since then have passed by, 3.7+ million deaths have been recorded and now the lab leak theory is being given a revival.

The floods of July 2020 along with the time span of 18 months are probably enough for China to roll out of harm’s way. These floods were alleged to be man made by various reports, including Chinese Activists Jennifer Zeng, quoting, “Flood in Yichang city, Hubei province on June 27th, 2020, which is merely 20 km away from the ‘Three Georges Dam’, and is the 1st city downstream of the dam. Local residents suspect that the flood was caused by secretly released floodwater from the Three Georges Dam.” 

For some past encounters of China harbouring viral diseases, we have the ‘Asian Flu of 1956’, ‘H5N1 Bird Flu of 1997’ & ‘SARS Epidemic of 2002’. 80K samples from 30 different species were studied to discern the source of the virus, out of which 0 were tested positive. The genetic sequencing results of this virus reveals no evidence of manipulated source so far, but there exist certain methods allowing the user to modify the genome of the pathogen subjected without leaving a trace by ‘fragmentation of DNA and then letting it to recombine by natural means.’

The notion of this lab leak theory was rejected as ‘Rightist Propaganda’ but now the very left leaning Joe Biden has ordered probe regarding the same. Meanwhile, China has played their part in order to save their image globally, which are follows:-

• Aggression in Eastern Ladakh against India, which still continues to exist.

•Heavy crackdown on social media, mainstream media, paid propaganda, silencing & disappearing of whistleblowers.

•Instigating war-like statements over Taiwan issue.

•Barring the team of scientists of WHO from having access to all labs.

•Threatening countries not to boycott upcoming Olympics to be happened in China, etc.

Now what? Well the ex-president of USA, Mr. Donald Trump has said to sue China to pay an amount of $10 Trillion in International Court of Justice (ICJ). India’s GDP in nominal terms is approximately 1/3rd of it. Is it possible to do so? Yes. Will China pay it to world as compensatory amount? No. 

It all comes down to the much anticipated results of the intelligence reports which Joe Biden has ordered to probe.

What should we expect if the report claims COVID-19 to be anthropogenic?

Well, that’ll be the very end of the “Taiwan as an independent & sovereign country.”

And what if it solidifies the zoonotic origin of the pandemic?

In that case, we must take appropriate & pre-emptive steps to prepare ourselves for future such crisis because believe it or not, whether you like it or not, COVID-19 wasn’t the last pandemic we had to face!

My PoV - China would be declared clean & clear in this case on the grounds of lack of evidence(s).

Conclusion - Even if it's just a result of human error due to incompetent technicians in labs or technical faults, China is still to be blamed for not only maintaining unjustifiable standards of protocol, but also allowing international flights to board in despite of initial upsurge in Wuhan City.