I have it on good authority, backed up by evidence, that the Covid-19 virus did leak from the Wuhan laboratory, a laboratory funded partially with U.S. dollars. Furthermore, my source posits that the Chinese government informed the U.S. government of the leak within two weeks or less. They, the Chinese, shut down the lab and subsequently put a military general/scientist in charge while placing all other labs in China under military control. There were also published reports in the first few weeks, which our intelligence folks would have most certainly picked up on their surveillance radar.
China’s knee-jerk “admit nothing” response would have created more political jeopardy for its leaders if they then turned around and retracted their position. Hence, denials piled up upon denials. But what about the U.S.? Why did the Trump administration soft-ball China’s culpability? Why didn’t the Trump administration take immediate and aggressive actions to minimize the impact of the virus? To what extent did our own scientists know about Chinese experimentation and culpability? After all, China was researching areas that U.S. scientists were prohibited from investigating because of political-social policy.
My guess? The U.S. did not want its connection to research in China made public, and Trump underestimated the threat and preferred to protect business interests before lives. Shutdowns are costly; old people are expendable.
Fie on the Chinese government! Fie on the U.S. government! But now what? China is not going to make reparations, and blaming them for the pandemic will only exacerbate anti-Asian sentiment that serves no positive purpose. The U.S. will never admit to knowing the truth, and not doing creates a standoff, an impasse.
Now the U.S. is suffering a surge of Covid-19 among the unvaccinated, spread primarily by the Delta variant. Can we blame China for that? No, we can’t. We can only blame ourselves. We can share the blame with some politicians, conspiracy nuts, religious fanatics…but the real culprit is us. I quoted Pogo in an earlier blog: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Get vaccinated, America!
Carole J. Garrison 