Mauro Gia Samonte
For a moment, I thought I was personally being upheld in my view of the coronavirus as a laboratory-made pathogen. This was upon reading The Manila Times story the other day headlined thus: “Coronavirus lab leak theory revisited.”
The story had this opener: “WHAT had been dismissed as an intriguing yet baseless conspiracy theory on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic is now getting a hard second look from health experts.”
That got me quite excited. I did write a number of articles in this column as early as March of 2020 when only one case of coronavirus affliction was reported in Philippine media. I was adamant in my position that there had been pieces of evidence that the coronavirus is a pathogen with genomes not quite consistent with those of the natural virus found in bats, for instance. And I cited admissions of a laboratory manufacture of the Covid-19 variant (at the time labeled 2019-nCOV), like that done by a certain Dr. Ralph Baric, whom Wikipedia describes as a “William R. Kenan Jr., Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.” Further readings led me to a disclosure that such a variant as manufactured by Baric had been regularly provided for multiplication at the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAmriid) inside Fort Detrick, Maryland. A visit to the laboratory by the United States War Secretary in 2019 revealed there had been leakage of the coronavirus inside Fort Detrick from whom came the more than a hundred soldiers who participated in that year’s edition of the World Military Games held in Wuhan, China.
Several aspects must stand out from these revelations. One, that the coronavirus is laboratory-made. Two, that the coronavirus had leaked on an undetermined scale inside Fort Detrick. Three, that US soldiers who participated in the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan came from Fort Detrick. And, most important of all, 14 days after the conclusion of the Games, the coronavirus outbreak took place in Wuhan.
At first glance, I thought this was what The Manila Times story the other day was finally all about. To a writer, nothing can be more gratifying than being proven true in what he writes about. I must admit, I had been pilloried for taking that stand – and keeping it to this day – and what a relief, therefore, that at long last there is my paper seemingly affirming my insight on the Covid-19 pandemic early on.
But reading on, I feel like losing wind.
The story states: “The most widely held origin story of Covid-19 is that it had its beginnings in a food market in Wuhan, China, where the virus managed to switch hosts from bats to humans.
But there is another narrative, one that would rival a science fiction thriller: that the coronavirus spread after it leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, where research was being conducted on bats infected with a “mysterious respiratory disease.”
So, okay, I am vindicated in my tight cling to the theory that the coronavirus is laboratory-made. But still I continue to be riled by the fact that although there seems to be no other way to explain the nature of the pandemic than as laboratory-made, the blame must continue to be placed on China. So we’re back to square one on who really started the contagion. The Chinese chemical laboratory in Wuhan or the USAmriid in Fort Detrick, Maryland?
There are quite a number of nagging questions that we must attend to.
One, if the outbreak was in Wuhan, why is it that almost at the same time the virus was on an onslaught in Wuhan, it was rampaging at nearly the same intensity in Italy already as well as in Iran? Look at the world map and realize that these geographical points are too far off from one another for a virus – that seemingly needs only a mask and a face shield to ward off – to get transmitted naturally.
Two, that although China freed itself from the virus in nearly just a quarter of a year, America had been on record as suffering the worst from the pandemic until India – with reportedly another variant of the coronavirus – caught up with it and now appears to be the worst afflicted.
The revisiting of the lab-made theory about Covid-19 has reportedly been triggered by a report of American intelligence that there had been withholding of information on the Wuhan outbreak. The World Health Organization is under pressure to look into this. But what is this all about but one more politicizing of a world health concern – no different from a massive distortion of the real situation in Xinjiang that the Western media has been making to appear as carnage of Chinese Muslims where there is none, or, in fact, of alleged Chinese aggression in the South China Sea promoted in the Philippine press for purposes of drumming up anti-Chinese rage among Filipinos.
And yet what harm has China done to the Philippines? In the oil exploration on Recto Reed, for instance, all expenses are by China and yet the Chinese have been magnanimous enough to grant the Philippines a 60 percent share in the proceeds. A thorough, comprehensive disclosure of Chinese assistance and investments for Philippine progress seems in order. Who will rise to the occasion?
As all this anti-China propaganda is done to advance United States hegemonic designs in the Indo-Pacific region, the reincarnation of the lab-made theory on the coronavirus, coming as it does from US intelligence, cannot but be one more exercise at serving the same evil purpose.
Republished from Manila Times 30-05-2021