Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous
The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.
The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.As early as Jan. 6, 2020, health officials in Beijing closed the lab of a Chinese scientist who sequenced the virus and barred researchers from working with him.
Scientists warn the willful blindness over coronavirus’ origins leaves the world vulnerable to another outbreak, potentially undermining pandemic treaty talks coordinated by the World Health Organization set to culminate in May.
At the heart of the question is whether the virus jumped from an animal or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory, but the debate has further tainted relations between the U.S. and China.
Unlike in the U.S., there is virtually no public debate in China about whether the virus came from nature or from a lab leak. In fact, there is little public discussion at all about the source of the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan.
Crucial initial efforts were hampered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which muzzled Chinese scientists and subjected visiting WHO officials to stage-managed tours; and the U.N. health agency itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information in hopes that by placating China, scientists could gain more access, according to internal materials obtained by AP.
Secrecy clouds the beginning of the outbreak. Even the date when Chinese authorities first started searching for the origins is unclear. “There was a chance for China to cooperate with WHO and do some animal sampling studies that might have answered the question,” said Tulane University virologist Robert Garry. “The trail to find the source has now gone cold.”
It is not surprising that the Chinese government obstructed and lied. It is deeply disappointing that American scientists kept telling us that they knew the virus came from a natural source, while denying the possibility or plausibility of a lab-leaked virus that was possibly man-made, maybe funded by US tax dollars.
We will never know the truth. We are thus free to believe what we want based on the incomplete evidence there is. I choose to believe (i) the origin was more likely a lab leak than natural source, maybe man made, (ii) the Chinese government is lying, (iii) the elite American scientists to told us a false story have no credibility, (iv) existing evidence fully supports calling what elite American scientists to told us a false story, and (v) we will never know the truth.
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An article published by Responsible Statecraft discusses a recent analysis of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in 2022. The talks got fairly close to being finalized. According to the RS article, the talks failed to bear fruit largely because (i) changing battlefield conditions convinced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he could win the war militarily, (ii) Western allies’ hesitance to engage diplomatically with Russia and simultaneous ramping up of military support for Ukraine, and (iii) the discovery that Russian forces had committed atrocities in Bucha. RS writes:
The RAND corporation’s Samuel Charap and Johns Hopkins University professor Sergey Radchenko published a detailed timeline and analysis of the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators just after the Russian invasion in February 2022 that could have brought the war to an end just weeks after it had begun.
On some of these points, the authors contend that earlier accounts have been overstated. The idea that the U.S. and the UK “forced” Zelensky to back out of peace talks is “baseless,” say Charap and Radchenko, though they acknowledge that “the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy.”
On the suggestion that the discovery of war crimes convinced the Ukrainian president to abandon negotiations, the authors note discussions “continued and even intensified in the days and weeks after the discovery of Russia’s war crimes, suggesting that the atrocities at Bucha and Irpin were a secondary factor in Kyiv’s decision-making.”
But taken together, these factors, along with certain details of the agreement that were never finalized, were enough to imperil the negotiations.
Now several years later, it is reasonable to believe that the combination of Zelensky's mistaken belief in a winnable war and Biden's neutral to lukewarm attitude about a peace deal were tragic, catastrophic failures of US and Ukraine leadership. The costs for that gigantic mistake will be very high. The US just passed a bill funding another $60 billion in military aid to the Ukraine after a crippling delay. The Ukraine's position is likely to remain weak until the country can no longer sustain the human and other losses of Russia's ruthless war. At the point of collapse, Ukraine will be forced to surrender under hideous terms. There will be a second 21st century genocide.
The lesson should have been clear early on. Try for peace as hard as possible. Even if talks fail or an agreement is breached, no one can accuse political leadership of at least not trying hard for a peace agreement.
The damage has been done. It cannot be undone. An end game along the lines of what is now playing out in Gaza seems likely for the Ukrainian people.
The world desperately needs better democracies and better democratic leaders.
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