The hunt for the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic has become something like an inquest on large scale. There have been 4.55 million deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Is this a case of terrible negligence, negligence, or something else?
Sharri Marksons, an Australian journalist, came to similar conclusions. She established a crime scene at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, central China. The murder weapon was a virus named Sars-CoV-2.
This is a reasonable line of inquiry. The institute is located just a few kilometers from Wuhan's food market. This is where the first large cluster of viruses was discovered. It has the largest collection of the bat coronavirus type from which Sars-CoV-2 appears to have been derived. WIV scientists perform function gene editing on bat viruses in order to increase their infectivity to humans.
Is it possible that a staff member of an institute could have accidentally been infected by an enhanced virus and taken it with her? Markson affirms this in her new book. It is based on reporting for News Corp papers as well as Sky television.
She even goes further and highlights the WIVs collaboration work with Peoples Liberation Army medical research to entertain, but not completely dismiss, the possibility of gain-of function research being used not only to prevent future pandemics but also to engineer viruses to be bioweapons.
How does this argument stack up?
It doesn't start well. The first paragraph states that Wei Jingsheng was the leader of Beijing's democracy wall movement from 1978-1979. This was one of the largest defection coups that the US pulled off inside communist China. This term is usually used to describe regime insiders who escape with valuable information. After spending the majority of his 18-year imprisonment, Wei was deported by Beijing in 1997.
Although it may seem like a minor point, Marksons thesis is based on a deep understanding of China's ruling party and how they work. Details matter.
As soon as news of a Wuhan outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause emerged in late 2019, her antennae rose. The illness was soon linked to a new coronavirus, similar to the Sars virus which erupted between 2002 and 2003. Beijing was hiding the truth behind layers of secrecy.
Mike Pompeo, the conservative US Republican secretary-of-state, shared this suspicion. He had declared a new, more aggressive stance towards China in October 2019. With Miles Yu (a columnist for the Washington Times, founded by Sun Myung Moon) and Mary Kissel (op-ed pages at the Wall Street Journal), he protected himself from State Department nuance.
Mike Pompeo, the then US secretary-of-state, stated in May 2020 that there was ample evidence that the coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan. Photograph by Reuters
Markson writes that Pompeo knew there would be no cover-up on Covid-19 if there were any nefarious activities to keep quiet. Late January 2020, Pompeo requested Yu to investigate any possibility of a WIV leak. Yu's 26 April 2020 report found that there was not enough direct evidence to support a leak, but it did provide persuasive circumstantial evidence.
Trump made this suggestion public on April 30, and Pompeo had already claimed that there was ample evidence to support the theory that the virus originated in Wuhan. Marise Payne, Australia's foreign affairs minister, had perhaps seen the pandemic in action when she demanded an independent inquiry on 19 April.
Scott Morrison and Pompeo share the same view on China's responsibility for the Covid-19 epidemic, Markson states. The US was happy to allow one of its Five Eyes allies to lead the charge; it would have been taken more seriously by international community, while if Trump had made that call, it would have been dismissed in racist terms.
Others might add that another case of muggins Australia attracted $20bn in trade sanctions. Markson claims that Australia's intelligence community was concerned by Yus' report. They viewed it as potentially similar to the US and British intelligence case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This turned out to not be true.
Journalist Sharri Markson. Photograph by Sydney Media Club
Trump's administration was split between security hawks and ex-bankers who tried to negotiate a large trade deal with China. Marksons book takes us through the internal debate with a strong leaning towards the hawks. It then moves on to the fascinating and alarming world that is virology.
She cites scientists who support the idea that the Sars-CoV-2 viruses was created by human intervention. They boosted the spike protein in a horseshoe batvirus from southern China to make it more compatible with Ace2 receptors in human cells.
Nikolai Petrovsky is an endocrinologist from Flinders University in South Australia. He started running simulations using a supercomputer to see how the SarsCoV-2 spike proteins fit the Ace2 receptors of cells from over a dozen animal species, including bats. It worked best on human receptors, he said. Markson tells Markson that the virus spike protein was designed so it could fit Ace2 human receptors. It's amazing.
Pangolin was next, and it was the most open host. This is the scaly anteater that can be found in south-east Asia and southern China, which has been proven to have been an intermediate host for Sars. Petrovsky claims that this host is unlikely to have incubated the new virus. Markson does not explore why. There is no evidence of a pangolin outbreak in their area, which is approximately 1500km away from Wuhan. It also doesn't appear that any pangolins were ever traded on Wuhan's market.
Scientists also make a big deal of the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein's furin cleavage sites. This is a unique feature that has not been seen in bat viruses and they claim it was used to increase infectivity. David Baltimore of California Institute of Technology said that this was a strong indicator of laboratory origin. Richard Muller, University of California, said it was similar to finding a fingerprint on a crime scene.
Shi Zhengli in a laboratory at central China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, 2017. Photograph by AP
Markson claims that conjecture about human intervention was not being accepted by scientific journals because they were sold the official line that a naturally occurring virus existed. She claims that the World Health Organization was complicit in China's actions. She claims that many scientists were compromised by their collaboration with Chinese counterparts, including Anthony Fauci, the US chief of health officer. One of her scientific sources called Fauci the father of gain of function research.
Markson's science needs more expert review than the article can handle, but many people don't support it. Markson stated that three scientists refused to speak to her in an interview with the Wentworth Courier, a Sydney paper.
Professor Dominic Dwyer is horrified at the science interpretation in [Sharri Marksons] article.
Professor Dominic Dwyer from the University of Sydney, a virologist, refused to accept the invitation. He was part of the WHO team who went to Wuhan in February for research on the virus origins. His public account of preliminary results was strongly in favor of a natural origin.
Dwyer states that he is surprised that only three-quarters of the decliners have declined. Dwyer hasn't read Marksons book but has seen some of her Sky documentaries and articles in The Australian.
He says that science is complicated, but her science interpretation is so poor it is absurd. While I can understand the theories being developed in the early stages of the pandemics, there is still evidence that animals are linked to the pandemic. However, this evidence has not been confirmed by the WHO since Wuhan's visit earlier this year.
Dwyer states that people often confuse investigation into the source of an outbreak with evaluation of the response to the pandemic. There are many countries that can be criticized for how they responded to the pandemic.
The Australian virologist Danielle Anderson is the only one who doesn't remember any contact from Markson. Anderson was a WIV bat virus specialist from 2016 to November 2019. Anderson is now at Melbournes Doherty Institute. She was highly praised for the professionalism of the high-containment laboratory and Shi Zhengli, its director, who apparently did not speak with Markson.
Anderson was the only foreign scientist at the Wuhan Institute when Covid-19 first arrived in the city. Markson claims that several WIV staff were present with Covid-19 when it first appeared in the city. The cellphone network was mysteriously shut down around the WIV in November 2019. Road access was blocked for several days in October 2019 and Markson reports this information from unspecified intelligence sources. Anderson did not notice.
China's communist leaders can be their worst enemy. They keep secrets around many things that no one can blame them for and even good things. They are able to be criticized by Markson, who will try to give the worst interpretation of what they do.
She cites in her book a discussion paper prepared by the Chinese delegation to UN convention on biological weapons and toxin arms, warning of the dangers of bioweapons using synthetic disease agents with race-specific infection. This is a sign that China may be developing such weapons in Wuhan or other locations.
Contrary to what some might think, Marksons suspicions are based on the view of people who support Marksons suspicions. The lesson of the book is that scientists must work together against the terrifying possibilities of viruses, regardless of their ideological differences.
The origins of Covid-19 are not known. Marksons book title needs to be questioned.
HarperCollins has What Really Happened In Wuhan by SharriMarkson (RRP$34.99).
