Why China just regurgitated its Fort Detrick COVID-19 conspiracy theory
Sat May 29 23:13:00 2021 EDT
Desperate to deflect growing international interest in discovering the source of the COVID-19 pandemic,
China is regurgitating one of its more absurd conspiracy theories.
This being the theory that the coronavirus did not originate in China but actually escaped from the U.S.
Army's Fort Detrick biolab. On Wednesday, Beijing's state media's Global Times editorialized on the need
for the World Health Organization to investigate Fort Detrick. Accessing the Maryland military base is
necessary, the foreign policy mouthpiece says, because since "2019, the Fort Detrick biolab has shown many
signs worthy of attention, and should be included in the first group of targets for investigation."
An adjunct of the major People's Daily state-media newspaper, the Global Times is a means for China's
foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi to send signals to the international community. Here, the Chinese
Communists are taking an example from the Russian KGB, which once spread rumors that Fort Detrick
created the HIV/AIDS virus.
But let's be clear about something. There is simply no evidence to suggest that Fort Detrick had any
involvement whatsoever in the original 2019 coronavirus outbreak. In contrast, there is abundant and
overwhelming evidence to suggest that the city of Wuhan, China, also home to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology, was the epicenter of the viral outbreak.
Still, the Global Times's editorial makes clear what has provoked this latest waltz into absurdity. It is the
Biden administration's now slightly invigorated call on the World Health Organization to examine the virus's
origins. Referencing the Wall Street Journal's recent reporting that three Wuhan Institute of Virology
scientists were hospitalized in the fall of 2019 with symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus, the
editorial laments "a vicious political frame-up." It continues, "Were there COVID-19 cases in the so-called
severe 'flu' in the U.S. before [the COVID-19 outbreak was public knowledge]? A lot of fresh information is
calling for WHO experts investigation into the U.S." The editorial concludes, "If the efforts of virus
origins-tracing focus on science rather than politics, expanding the scope of the investigation is completely
logical and rational."
Yes, this is all very silly. There is no evidence to suggest that Fort Detrick was engaged in priority
coronavirus research, or that it maintained lax safety protocols, or that it engaged in a significant
post-outbreak metadata cover-up of what its officers were doing (all of which apply to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology). Moreover, Fort Detrick is 7,530 miles from Wuhan. So, unless the U.S. military has developed
biologics-capable teleportation technology (I don't believe it has), the Global Times isn't on strong ground.
The editorial does show us one valuable thing, however. The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly
agitated. It feels the need to distract us from the facts and, perhaps, to dilute the power of truths yet to be
unveiled.
In turn, the Biden administration has a responsibility to stop dragging its feet. Alongside U.S. allies, it should
demand international access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That's the least that the victims of this virus,
which is to say the entire human population, deserve.
Photo Caption:Biohazard suits hang in a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory at the U.S. Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Patrick
Semansky)
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