It’s the biggest medical mystery of the modern era – and a race against time with millions of lives on the line.
Scientists are desperately trying to understand the COVID-19 coronavirus responsible for the deadly global pandemic.
And that means not simply working on treatments and searching for a cure… but figuring out where the virus came from and how it made the leap into people.
These answers could help ensure the human race never faces this kind of threat again.
But many are growing frustrated by the secretive nature of the communist government in China, where the outbreak began – and that’s led to conspiracy theories both online and in the media.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh even wondered if the virus was the result of “a ChiCom (Chinese Communist) laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized.”
Most experts believe this virus is completely natural.
But China’s secrecy has led to confusion and fear – and a documentary previously unseen in the West until recently has many asking even more questions.
Did this virus originate in the “wet markets” of Wuhan, where exotic animals are slaughtered and sold, as China has claimed – or did it indeed come from a lab, not because it was weaponized… but because of a tragic mistake?
The documentary shows researcher Tian Junhua from a Wuhan lab located not far from that wet market as he explored the region’s bat caves in search of new viruses to study.
“I am not a doctor, but I work to cure and save people,” he says in the video, according to The Washington Times. “I am not a soldier, but I work to safeguard an invisible national defense line.”
At one point he came into contact with bat urine when he wasn’t wearing his protective gear and had to quarantine himself for 14 days as a result.
An unnamed U.S. government official told The Times he was concerned by the report given that Tian works at the Wuhan equivalent of the CDC, where some 2,000 new viruses have been identified and isolated in recent years, many from bats.
“He is among the small team in Wuhan that has contributed to China’s obsession in recent years with virus hunting and research,” the official told the newspaper.
A report in the scientific journal Nature attempted to dispel the conspiracy theories and other rumors by examining the nature and origins of the virus currently causing a wave of infection and illness around the world.
“Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the researchers wrote.
However, it also confirmed that bats “serve as reservoir hosts” for this virus, as well as links to another animal with suspected ties to the infection: “Pangolin coronaviruses exhibit strong similarity” to the one in circulation now.
The pangolin is a scaly anteater that’s often been used in Chinese medicine. One theory is that the infection originated in the illegal trade of pangolin, which was the “intermediate” host for the virus after the bats.
Other experts also believe the virus is natural.
“Based on the virus genome and properties, there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told The Washington Post.
But Ebright also told The Washington Times that it’s not clear if the virus got its start at one of the wet markets… or if it was a natural virus under study in that Wuhan lab.
“Therefore, the first human infection also could have occurred as a laboratory accident,” he speculated, noting that the lab in Wuhan “provides only minimal protections against infection of lab workers.”
Regardless of the origin of the virus, one thing is clear: the so-called “wet markets” of China where wild and exotic animals are openly slaughtered and sold as food are germ factories.
Nearly every major public health official believes they should be shuttered.
Yet right now, they’re reopening instead – and reports on social media indicate they’re already back to selling exotic animals… including bats.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert.