In the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report and investigation in Wuhan back in March, they had initially concluded that it was extremely unlikely that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak.
However, with China’s refusal to allow independent investigations, as well as suspicious classified reports popping up, it’s hard for anyone to come to a decisive conclusion on the origins of the virus.
In fact, The New York Times highlights that more scientists now agree that the hypothesis was dismissed too hastily, without a thorough investigation.
Now, top Chinese virologist, Dr Shi Zhengli, has fingers pointing at her (or in our words: kena arrowed) for potentially unleashing SARS-CoV-2 on the world.
Why Dr Shi Zhengli?
Dr Shi played a part in China’s efforts and success in curbing the pandemic and for working on vaccines—however, this is the total opposite in the West.
China’s reluctance to allow any investigation into her lab or to share any data with the rest of the world makes it hard to cross out Dr Shi’s work as the cause for the outbreak.
But what does her work have to do with the coronavirus?
Back before the pandemic, she was known as the “Bat Woman” and was at the forefront of researching emerging viruses. In fact, Dr Shi leads the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s work on emerging infectious diseases, and over the years, her group has collected over 10,000 bat samples from around China.
She even made a breakthrough ten years ago when she found bats in a cave in southwestern China that carried coronaviruses that were similar to the virus that causes SARS.
Overall, her meaningful work was aimed at preventing the outbreak of illnesses.
However, The New York Times noted that some of her research has drawn much scrutiny: she began experimenting on bat coronaviruses in recent years by genetically modifying them to see how they behave.
In 2017, she and her colleague published a paper about an experiment in which they created new hybrid bat coronaviruses by mixing and matching parts of several existing ones—including at least one that was nearly transmissible to humans—in order to study their ability to infect and replicate in human cells.
It’s not hard to see why there is a need for an investigation and how the disinclination to conduct one can be damning.
Conditions of Her Research
The paper also reported that there were concerns with regards to the conditions under which she conducted her experiments.
It was pointed out that the labs (BSL 2 labs) in which she performed her experiments on bat viruses had a much lower level of security than the other labs in the same institute, perhaps pointing to the fact that an accidental leak could have happened.
A few scientists have signed the open letter in the journal, Science, calling for a review of what level of biosafety precautions were taken in studying bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan institute.
The letter urged labs and health agencies to open their records to the public.
On the other hand, other scientists do not believe that there was any risk in Dr Shi conducting her research in BSL 2 labs. According to her, the bat viruses in China could be studied in BSL 2 labs because there was no evidence that they directly infected humans.
She also said that the closest bat virus in her lab was only 96% identical to SARS-CoV-2, which shows a vast difference by genomic standards.
She refuted the claims that her lab had worked on other viruses in secret and that three researchers had fallen ill in 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic.
Again, scientists and officials in the West agreed that China should share employees’ medical records and the lab’s logs of its experiments and its viral sequence database to evaluate Dr Shi’s claims.
The co-author of the Science letter expressed that figuring out the origins of the virus and gaining more information “has nothing to do with fault or guilt”.
“It’s just bigger than any one scientist or institute or any one country—anybody anywhere who has data of this sort needs to put it out there,” said Dr Redham.
Dr Shi’s Response
In a phone conversation, Dr Shi frustratingly expressed, “How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?”
With regard to investigating her lab, she emphasised that she and the institute had been open with the WHO and with the global scientific community.
She called the actions of the community “speculation rooted in utter distrust”.
Dr Shi also said that what she saw as the politicisation of the question had sapped her of any enthusiasm for investigating the origins of the virus. She has instead focused on COVID-19 vaccines and the features of the new virus, and over time, she said, has calmed down.
In her email interview, she maintained that she “did nothing wrong” and had “nothing to fear”.
New Investigation Into Virus; Transparency Matters
While many scientists believe that the virus likely jumped from an animal to a human, outside of the lab, they still required proof to refute the hypothesis of a viral lab leak.
Even the WHO’s Director-General, Mr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that the assessment was not extensive enough.
As such, US President Joe Biden, has ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the origin question, including the lab theory.
“Transparency matters across the board,” he said.
Funnily enough, when Trump touted theories of a lab leak (of course, unsupported by evidence at the time) many were quick to dismiss his Sinophobic statements, with good reason.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
At the G7 summit on Sunday (13 Jun), world leaders urged China to be part of a new investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Biden told reporters that he and other leaders had discussed access to labs in China.
Hopefully, there will be more answers than questions next time.
Feature Image: MIND AND I / Shutterstock.com
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