Long long ago, there was an ancient country in Central Asia called Khwarezmia, had a strange custom. All messengers who brought good news to the king would be rewarded and those with bad news would be sent to feed tigers.
The reason why I mention this legend is because of two pieces of news that I have seen recently. One is that, on March 30, the World Health Organization released a report on their joint study with Chinese experts in Wuhan on COVID-19 origin-tracing. As a part of global scientific research on the origin of the novel coronavirus, Chinese experts and the WHO experts worked together in Wuhan from January 14 to February 10 this year. The joint team’s assessment of likelihood of each possible pathway was as follows: introduction through an intermediate host is considered to be a likely to very likely pathway; direct zoonotic spillover is considered to be a possible-to-likely pathway; introduction through cold/ food chain products is considered a possible pathway; introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway.
Another piece of news is that on March 29, some U.S. officials expressed concern over the WHO report and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with CNN that he believed the Chinese government helped write this report. Apparently, these American officials seem like the legendary king mentioned above, just willing to hear the news they want to hear. Naturally, they will neither, nor dare to send experts from the WHO or China to feed the tigers, but the consequences of doing so by the legendary king and some U.S. officials are the same. This will undermine the independence of scientific research and even the global efforts to fight the epidemic.
First of all, as the most authoritative and universal institution in the field of global health governance, the World Health Organization has played the role of leader, coordinator, guarantor and information center in different periods and degrees in promoting global health governance. In general, it has a central position. China has neither the will nor the power to direct and control its work.
Secondly, China was the first to report the epidemic to the World Health Organization, and released key information such as the gene sequence of the novel coronavirus, and the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control plans at the earliest time possible. The first suspicious case was reported to local authorities in Wuhan on December 27, 2019. On January 3, 2020, China began to inform the US about the epidemic and its prevention and control measures on a regular basis. Since then, China has kept the US informed and the two sides have maintained close communication. So the U.S. is well aware of that.
The ultimate goal of COVID-19 origin-tracing mission is never finger-pointing, but rather better understanding of the virus to prevent such an epidemic from happening again. This is a scientific issue that should be entrusted to scientists to research. The country that first reported the problem does not mean that it is the source of the COVID-19 virus. As the WHO report mentioned above also said that it is important to investigate “potential early events” of COVID-19 cases reported in different countries.
Back to the interesting legend mentioned at the beginning of the article, I’m wondering if there had been such a stupid king in history who solved the problem by killing the messenger who reported it. Similarly, the U.S. government should know that accusing or slandering China cannot eliminate the COVID-19, nor solve its own problems. Then why does the US government insist on doing this? I think it is hard to answer from scientific view. This has become a political issue, which involves the global strategy and domestic politics of the United States. Friends who are interested in it can do further research and thinking.
