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Opinion | To lay coronavirus conspiracy theories to rest, both the US and China need to be transparent
- Both China and the US have accused each other of contributing to the origins of Covid-19, but Chinese concerns have not been taken seriously
- The allegations of biowarfare surrounding this pandemic should prompt a review of the Biological Weapons Convention and states’ compliance with it
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In recent days, a verbal battle has developed between the White House and the World Health Organization (WHO), with the US expressing “deep concern” about the WHO report on its coronavirus investigation in China because the US alleges the latter had not been fully transparent with its data.
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On February 13, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan raised concerns about the independence of the WHO team preparing the report, echoing concerns raised by the Trump administration. The Chinese embassy in Washington fired back with a strongly worded statement, pointing out that the US, which had damaged international cooperation on Covid-19 and withdrawn from the WHO, should not be “pointing fingers” at China and other countries that supported the WHO during the pandemic.
Both China and the US have accused each other of contributing to the origins of Covid-19. However, the Anglo-American media and the US government have been unwilling to address China’s concerns, labelling them “conspiracy theories”.
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Robin Marantz Henig writing in National Geographic in July last year noted that, except for Aids, other recent epidemics – such as severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012 and Ebola in 2014 – did not go global. “It was easy to attribute susceptibility in other countries to behaviours that didn’t exist in ours,” argued Henig.
Perhaps this explains why Chinese concerns of a possible American or European origin of Covid-19 are not taken seriously, but, if American concerns about the virus escaping from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are to be investigated seriously (as the WHO team has attempted to do), it is equally important that the US be transparent and open up its own research centres and biological defence programmes for inspection and investigation.
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