How it all started? Day 1 – Patient Zero #COVID-19

Following the Trump administration’s decision to cease WHO’s funding due to its alleged incompetency, reports suggest that the origin could have been from the labs of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, based in China. This comes in contrary to what is infamously acclaimed by the Chinese leadership that the virus originated from its ‘wet meat market’

I was suprised, when I took a look at the number of COVID-19 positive cases in Beijing, the heart of China.

A further glance at numbers of other provinces shocked me even more. One of the China’s most populated province, reported only 628 cases after several months of outbreak.

All of this, with many other such instances, continued to puzzle and shock me. After Beijing and Shanghai, what came next, is why I chose to write this article.

This is where it gets interesting, Chongqing and Anhui both which are under 700 kilometres from Hubei, Wuhan, reported significantly lower cases (<1000). Even when their borders are practically merged with Wuhan’s the number of positive cases are shockingly less than what one would expect.

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Obviously, these evidences are not enough to blame China for the origin of the virus, as all of these can be considered to be purely circumstantial. One can not overlook the measures taken up by China to which the world looks up to which include:

• The National Medical Products Administration of China taking immediate action to speed up the work of biotech companies to develop detection kits. The first kit was introduced on 13 January, with a sufficient supply available two weeks later.
• Within a week of identifying the unknown virus, successfully sequencing it and reporting the genetic information to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Tracking implementation down to individuals, apartments, houses, communities, organizations, public facilities and city management.
• Designating infectious disease care and management facilities to isolate, monitor and treat positive cases.
• Establishing health QR codes were for everyone in the city and everyone who entered the city. The green code allows you to move freely. The yellow code requires a seven-day self-quarantine. The red code requires a 14-day self-quarantine. The yellow and red codes can be turned green after the quarantine time.

These were some applaudable measures taken by the Chinese leadership. But at the same time, new evidences and reports surfaced, suggesting the involvement of Wuhan Institute of Virology. The institute began building the current “national biosafety laboratory” in Wuhan in 2005 after the 2003 SARS outbreak. This lab happens to be the only lab in all of China where work related to viruses, and the epidemics and pandemics caused by them, can take place.

This is now raising eyebrows across the world and is making things become more dire for China.

Additionally, reports from US officials suggest that the institute had been warned by the USA on several occasions to improve the safety measures taken in their lab.y

The Wuhan lab was receiving aid from US organizations, including a laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, but the cable suggested the US should provide additional support because the research was so dangerous.

The cables were meant to “sound the alarm” about safety conditions in the lab — and the embassy officials were calling for more support of the lab to help fix its problems.

There’s no evidence to suggest the coronavirus currently cutting its way across the globe was engineered in a lab — but that does not exclude the possibility it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is, very ironically, only miles away from the ‘wet meat market‘