Wuhan’s impenetrable mysteries

Yet again a convincing case has been presented on why the international community must insist on a no-holds-barred investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 virus in Wuhan.

On Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became so ill in November 2019 that they sought hospital care. The Journal article followed a report by The Australian’s investigations editor, Sharri Markson, who broke the story more than two months earlier. On March 22 she reported that the researchers’ illness “was consistent with both Covid-19 and influenza”. The researchers were working with coronaviruses. The US State Department’s former lead investigator into the origins of Covid-19, David Asher, told Markson the possibility could not be ruled out that the laboratory was developing a vaccine as an antidote to a bioweapon. In Mr Asher’s view, the researchers’ illness was the likely cause of the Covid-19 outbreak. The virus has since infected almost 168 million people and killed more than 3.4 million. The foolishness of left-leaning media outlets that failed to grasp the significance of Markson’s stories is now clear for all to see. The Times also followed up on Tuesday: “We know this all started with a bat. We know it ended with a pandemic. What we don’t know is what happened in between.”

It is time we did know — a point Scott Morrison was castigated for making more than a year ago. His demand for a thorough investigation prompted China to warn that its bilateral relationship with Australia could be damaged beyond repair. Trade sanctions against a range of Australian exports followed. When it eventuated, the World Health Organisation investigation was impeded by China at every turn and was inconclusive. It did not come close to explaining the emergence of a pathogen that has devastated much of the world. While not ruling it out entirely, the report lent credence to China’s claim that the pandemic was not the result of a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute. Such an accident, investigators said, was “extremely unlikely” because there was no record that any laboratory had been working with the new coronavirus or a closely related virus.

We now know, from Markson’s work, that it was creating deadly coronaviruses through gain-of-function research. This is all the more reason for China, if it has nothing to hide, to open all relevant records, including the institute’s database — which has been offline for almost two years — to scrutiny. In the interests of humanity, relevant personnel must be free to speak openly, without fear of reprisals. That, unfortunately, is unrealistic.

It must not be forgotten, as Markson revealed on May 7, that Chinese military scientists discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the pandemic, predicting a third world war would be fought with biological weapons. The document was written by People’s Liberation Army scientists and senior Chinese public health officials in 2015.

Markson’s book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, will be published by HarperCollins in September. In an extended report on Wednesday, she reveals strong scientific links between the Wuhan laboratory and research facilities in the US, Canada and even Australia. The report reveals a treacherous, clandestine world, such as samples of deadly Ebola and Nipah viruses taken by a Chinese scientist from Canada to send to the Wuhan Institute and PLA members on the board of the journal run by Shi Zhengli, the institute’s Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

For now, the origins of Covid-19 remain a deadly secret. But lessons slowly emerging must be learned for the benefit of history.