Boris Johnson’s support of the Covid lab leak theory is significant

This time Johnson may have performed a public service

September 29, 2024 5:57 p.m(Updated 5:58 p.m)

Boris Johnson is publishing his memoirs to coincide with the Conservative Party conference, in his usual attention-grabbing manner and in his familiar, gritty, florid style.

Political autobiographies tend to be solipsistic attempts to cement their author’s place in history, so most are very bleak. Given Johnson’s shameful record in office, his selfishness and his dismal relationship with the truth, his book would normally serve only as a sad reminder of his party’s descent into stupidity that led to such brutal rejection by the electorate.

But one thing stands out: his assumption that the Covid-19 pandemic was triggered by some kind of leak from a laboratory in Wuhan and not by zoonotic transmission from an animal species.

“The terrible thing about the whole Covid disaster is that in all its aspects it appears to have been entirely man-made,” he writes. “It is now very likely that the mutation was the result of a botched experiment in a Chinese laboratory. Some scientists clearly put pieces of virus together like the witches in Macbeth – the eye of a bat and the toes of a frog – and oops, the playful little critter jumped out of the test tube and started multiplying around the world.”

This claim, reported by The email on Sundayis significant because Johnson was prime minister when a strange new coronavirus broke out in this central Chinese city, spreading death, fear and economic devastation across the planet (and almost causing his own demise).

The former prime minister is the most prominent politician after Donald Trump to publicly express this suspicion, although it has become an increasingly widespread public opinion in the 55 months since I first began investigating China’s cover-up of the birth of Covid .

Like the former president of the United States, Johnson is a politician with a history of deception who is loathed by many enemies. But that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong.

It would be good to think that we have learned from the stupid tribalism that has clouded the debate about the origins of Covid, since the outcome is so important to preventing another pandemic.

Johnson’s statement, coming from such a crucial source, should finally trigger a serious discussion of the issues in Britain. Politicians, officials, key scientists and the intelligence community must be brought to the scene and questioned under oath about their knowledge of the outbreak – especially given mounting evidence of an organized attempt at the highest levels to suppress debate about the origins of the idea of ​​a lab leak Branding it a “conspiracy theory.”

Last week, Professor Kevin Fong, former national clinical adviser for emergency preparedness at NHS England, described the pandemic as the “biggest national emergency this country has faced since the Second World War” as he spoke movingly – and often tearfully – about the medical Reaction spoke the Covid hearings.

This investigation is costing the taxpayer £200 million. But when former Cabinet minister Michael Gove – another key player in the UK’s response – said “there is a significant body of judgment that the virus itself was caused by humans”, he was quickly dismissed because he was had gotten involved in this “somewhat divisive topic”.

This is unacceptable. There is not enough space here to go through the complex debate, suffice it to say that there is still no definitive proof of the origins. Intensive efforts to find a host that may have caused a virus to spread from bats living hundreds of miles away to humans in Wuhan – with attempts to blame creatures such as pangolins and raccoon dogs – have begun Assumptions led that the virus broke out in a wet market.

This hackneyed theory – which keeps popping up like a bad penny – has been roundly rejected by Chinese authorities and the world’s top coronavirusologist. It does not agree with the evidence on the earliest cases, nor with much research that attempts to date the first infections.

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The alternative case advanced by Johnson grew stronger with every crumb of evidence. There was always reasonable suspicion that a pandemic had broken out in the city that is home to the world’s leading research laboratory for SARS-like viruses, especially when it was discovered that there were known concerns about safety practices.

This lab collected thousands of bat viruses from southern China and Southeast Asia, but hid its database. It conducted high-risk “gain-of-function” research to increase the infectivity of coronaviruses in low-safety environments, derided as the “Wild West” even by its backers in Washington.

And we learned that shortly before the pandemic, Wuhan scientists, together with their partners in the US, proposed developing viruses with the hallmark feature of the Covid virus – the “furin cleavage site”, which allows for more efficient entry into human cells Similar cells cannot be found in types of coronaviruses. This lab leak theory was bolstered by a series of shocking leaks and revelations centered around some of the most prominent figures driving the zoonotic disease case.

But this passionate debate is dividing even the intelligence community in the United States – although Washington has made at least some effort to find out the truth, even if discussions in Congress have been depressingly partisan.

In Britain, despite similar concerns about the role of some leading scientists and institutions – including Sir Patrick Vallance, recently appointed science minister by the Labor government – there has been only a muffled official silence.

Science relies on openness and the vigorous exchange of ideas. But the questions at stake here go beyond the core question of the cause of Covid-19 and Beijing’s role in covering up the initial outbreak, which exacerbated the impact with terrible and tragic consequences.

They raise questions about the regulation of risky experiments, the role of Western donors, the behavior of leading scientists, the failures of global health authorities, the duplicity of scientific journals, the lapidary reporting of naive journalists and even the corruption of universities by cash-strapped Chinese.

Behind all this lies the stench of elitist arrogance and the subservience of democratic institutions to a repugnant dictatorship. This time Johnson may have performed a public service.