By Ms. Minahil Shawal Afridi

– Research Assistant, Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad

While Beijing is taking every possible measure to halt the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in China and abroad, Washington is busy playing the blame game rather than making concrete efforts to address the global issue.  China is very wisely dealing with the health conditions in affected areas and has granted all kinds of possible assistance to improve the health systems in developing as well as underdeveloped countries. Having glance of the international scenario at the moment, it can be seen that China has emerged as a global leader in curbing the menace of a deadly virus, which is accused of originating in China’s own Wuhan City. However, the evidence and facts that are now unveiling on different international media platforms and the research being conducted by seasoned health expertsraises new queries about the timeline of the pandemic and suggest that Covid-19-though detected in China – has no origin in the country. This article highlights the facts, supporting the aforementioned claim.

Fake rumours being circulated on social media is misguiding people regarding the actual realities concerning Covid-19, and surprisingly this misinformation is spreading faster than the virus itself. The World Health Organization has defined this harmful outbreak of misleading myths as “infodemic”, which is a serious matter to be concerned about. The false claims and information flooding on social media have made it problematic for people to identify reliable sources and, accurate plausible measures. This deluging false medical advice is creating difficulties for the experts in guiding people what preventive measures to take at this hour of need. According to a report cited in the Washington Post on March 1, 2020, over 2 million tweets comprising of conspiracies about the coronavirus were circulated in a time span of just two months between January and February.

One of the misleading information spread across the globe initially after the outbreak of pandemic was that “The virus had been created- accidentally or deliberately – in a laboratory at the Wuhan Disease

Control and Prevention Centre”. This false propositionhad been posted by the Washington Times on January 6, 2020, but has been widely rejected by international experts.The article reads that a government-run lab in Hubei Province of China, the “Wuhan Institute of Virology”, is responsible for the outbreak of Covid-19. It’s quite strange and at the same time absurd that this very claim was made merely based on a speculationby a former Intelligence officer from Israel. What is more shocking is that without having any evidence of the claimed statement, the international media outlets including The Texas radio station KPRC and The Toronto Sun columnist Candice Malcolm’s YouTube show grabbed the idea and ran with it to boost their ratings. However, many international public health researchers very clearly stated in The Lancet that Covid-19 had nothing had no natural origin in China.

Another myth circulating among the international community is that the source of the coronavirus is the “wet market” in Wuhan where it was transmitted from bats. Interestingly, the exact animal source of Covid-19 has not yet been identified, and most importantly the point to note is that bats were not sold at the Wuhan wet market.Furthermore, the description of the initial cases that are published in The Lancet also challenges the hypothesis that Wuhan market is the origin of a deadly virus. Chinese scientists have found that the first reported case of the Covid-19, in December 2019, had no link to the Wuhan market.According to the report compiled by Chinese researchers from several institutions, no epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later cases. Also, 13 of the 41 cases had no link to the marketplace.

Based on research and facts, it is necessary to understand that China has not started the coronavirus nor are Asians responsible for it. This kind of false statements by US government officials in creating panic among people and giving rise to hate sentiments against Asians. The US in some cases is openly claiming that China put together this virus. Just recently, what Senator Tom Cotton tweeted out on January 30, 2020:

“I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus”.

Surprisingly, the evidence Mr Cotton provided to support his claim was the statement itself. Thereis no scientific evidence for these claims and would do no good but harm as we see happening in the West specifically.  This kind of attitude from senior officials has resulted in disastrous events, for example, an Asian man was attacked in London by racists who were furious about the coronavirus outbreak and held “him” responsible for it. Similar incidents of Coronavirus-related racism are observed in other Western countries too, including Germany.

Having deliberated upon the myths revolving around blaming China of the Covid-19, let us now face some harsh realities of the United States’ concerning the pandemic. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), Robert Redfield confessed something very questionable, in the House Oversight Committee. He admitted that Americans who died from influenza were later tested positive for Covid-19, in the posthumous diagnosis. This statement raises so many questions and concerns about the irresponsibility and carelessness on the US’ part. Also, it shifts all eyes on US’ regarding the debate about the origin of Covid-19, instead of China. So the U.S. officials including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, calling the disease – “Wuhan virus”, would now care to call it the “Blooper Virus”?

In August 2019, US observed a viral disease which they initially accredited to “vaping” which they called electronic cigarette pneumonia. Although the symptoms of the then “unknown disease” could not be explained by e-cigarettes and people had been using them for decades. This caused several deaths in the US which were attributed to common viral flu, and infected many US soldiers as well.Robert Redfieldhas however stated that post-mortems were performed to learn the cause of death and was found that the disease was mis-diagnosed. According to him, he wrote to the US officials that the suspected deaths were not due to flu but coronavirus. Unfortunately, his warnings were ignored by concerned authorities. These reports were highlighted on mainstream media in Taiwan and Japan.

Further tracking the timeline, in October 2019 – The Military World Games were organized in Wuhan, China. 300 US soldiers –already infected – came to Wuhan on the pretense of taking part in the military competition but veryweirdly, could not win a single game. These soldiers during their visit had visited Wuhan wet markets and roamed around the entire city. Few of them got ill and were hospitalized in Wuhan for an undetermined infection.A few weeks later this novel virus appeared in Wuhan. From August 2019 to January 2020, the CDC department in the US reported that theworst flu had taken over the countrycausing upto 12000 deaths.But surprisingly the US took no concrete action over this alarming situation. Later in March, the CDC director disclosed that some COVID-19 deaths were misdiagnosed as flu and COVID-19 wasdiagnosed when they did posthumous tests. After the Military World Games in China in October 2019, it was inDecember 2019 that the first confirmed case was reported in Wuhan.

Comprehending the facts further, science has proven that the family of coronaviruses has revealed 5 strains until the present, and the US is the only country with all 5 variants of the virus. Another argument is that the laboratory tests conducted in Italy gave stunning results, which showed that a strain of the virus obtained from an Italian patient was genetically different from the original strain isolated in China and two Chinese tourists who became sick in Rome.Therefore the genetic difference of the traits of the virus in Italy as well as Iran, have been declared to have similarities to one found in China. Hence it quite wells supplements the claim that China is not responsible for “creating” or “spreading” the deadly virus, rather it was the inattentionof US authorities which led to this alarming situation worldwide.