Why we should not "move on" from discussing the Covid pandemic in general, and the lab leak hypothesis in particular.
by George J. Dance
This February, four years after the first Covid cases were reported in North America, the resulting pandemic appears to be well and truly over. Those four years divide neatly into two halves. The first half was notably goverened by a climate of fear, in which governments imposed numerous totalitarian mandates and restrictions, some blatantly illegal and all without due process of law, but all with overwhelming support from a panicked citizenry. Then, at the beginning of 2023 (as I'd predicted), enough people had finally had enough; public support for Covid mandates and restrictions melted away, and many (not all) of those mandates and restrictions have since been ended. Covid may be killing more people in 2024 than it did in 2020, but by and large people have lost their fear of it; as the cliche has it, they have "moved on"
The blog has also moved on to a degree; after being virtually all-Covid most of those four years, I have made it more about other, more current issues. But I intend to keep reporting on the virus and the pandemic. The pandemic has passed from current events to history, but in my opinion history is even more important than current events; because it is history that we learn from. If we do not learn from the Covid pandemic, and all the mistakes that were made in it, we are destined (as Santayana put it) to repeat those mistakes. Which is why I intend to keep thinking and writing about the Covid pandemic, no matter how many "moved on" people, including many whose judgement I respect, would prefer that I stop.
That goes double for the "lab leak" story: the ongoing debate over whether the SARS2 virus originated "zoonotically" or from another animal species, or whether it was delibertately designed by scientists and then escaped from a laboratory. It is not only the "moved on" who object to discussing that; many people still active in debating other aspects of the pandemic have their own objections, including many whom I call "Covid libertarians" (those, like me, who opposed lockdowns and other mandates.
One prominent example is Michael Senger, a writer whose Covid writings I have excerpted here since 2021. His worry is that saying Covid came from a labe reinforces the idea of SARS2 as a "bioweapon," which makes both the 2020-2022 climate of fear, and the resulting restrictions and mandates seem justified. I agree that; we should make it clear that SARS2 was in no way a "bioweapon". A disease that kills just the very old and the very sick is simply not an effective weapon of war.
Another Covid libertarian is John Tamny, editor of Real Clear Politics, whose objections I featured here last spring under the headline "Covid origins debate distracts from main issue." His worry is is that the lab leak debate takes the focus off debating Covid mandates and restrictions, which is where it belongs. Fair enough. We should not make the "lab leak" our main concern. But I disagree that we should stop discussing it. For whether SARS2 had a zoonotic or laboratory origin is an important question that needs an answer. One crucial lesson we must learn for the future depends precisely on how we answer that question; we will learn the correct lesson only by reaching the correct answer.
First, consider what it would mean if the zoonotic hypothesis is correct. Advocates of that hypothesis often weaken their case by insisting that the virus jumped species when and where it was first detected, at a Wuhan wet market in December 2019, which we know now cannot be correct: there is copious evidence that SARS2 was circulating as early as October 2019. Nor have scientists ever found the animal virus that jumped over to humans. But that is not enough to rule out the zoonotic claim completely.
For most of this century epidemiologists have warned of a killer virus jumping species. Most of those warnings have come to nothing. But now, suddenly, all those warnings have proved prescient; a killer virus has arrived. And if one virus can do it, why not others? Why not a super-killer virus -- the "Disease X" the World Health Organization has been warning of -- next time? Or the next? Whatever the case, we seem to be at the mercy of any number of Disease X's, any of which could jump species and decimate the human race at any time; and it i
But virologists offer us a way to escape that fate. They will go out into the wild, collect the worst viruses they can find, and genetically modify them to infect humans. The next steps would be to select the best candidates for Disease X, develop vaccines for them, and proceed to mass vaccinate the world's population. That way we can immunize everyone against tomorrow's killer virus today. When and if Disease X does hit, it is hoped, it will encounter a population already fully immunized against it.
The name for this program is "gain of function research". Many noted epidemiologists support gain of function research -- notably Dr. Anthony Fauci, who for years funded it through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Fauci is passionate in defending gain-of-function, and appears sincere in his belief that it could literally save mankind.
Now, consider what it would mean if the lab leak hypothesis is correct. There were two labs in Wuhan engaged in bat research: the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) across the river, and the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just down the street from the wet market. Neither one (to repeat) is known to have conducted bioweapon research. Howeever, it is documented fact that the WIV was engaged in gain-of-function research on bat coroniviruses, funded by Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Institute and ultimately (despite earlier contradictory statements) by Anthony Fauci's NIAID. Once again, we do not have samples of the virus; but it is reasonable to think those could have been destroyed or confiscated when the Army took over Wuhan at the end of 2019.
We also know that Wuhan was experiencing a surge of influenza in the fall of 2019. As noted, SARS2 kills and hospitalizes mainly the very old and very sick; laboratory workers being neither, it is possible that it could have circulated among them undetected for the next few weeks. It is also plausible that it could have spread to their colleagues at the Wuhan CDC, and from there to the wet market down the street (which was the first superspreader event).
Such are the implications of the rival hypotheses. Either millions suffered and died during the Covid pandemic because scientists failed to undertake gain of function research, or they suffered and died during the pandemic because scientists did undertake it. Either gain-of-function research is our best defense against a killer virus, and should be encouraged; or it poses a bigger threat of a killer virus, one, and should be severely limited if not banned outright.
We have to choose one path or the other; what we must do is carefully check and debate all the evidence, and come to the best possible answer. What we cannot do is simply "move on" and leave the question unanswered.
COVID came from the Wuhan lab and accountability is needed to ensure that we never fund this again | Rich McCormick | January 11, 2024:
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