The media and the Biden administration are beginning to acknowledge the real possibility that the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The only real surprise is that it has taken this long for them to get here.
The evidence pointing to a cover-up of some kind has long been clear. And more is coming to light. As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, three WIV researchers “became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.”
It’s now clear that COVID-19 is China‘s Chernobyl. That is to say, Beijing’s version of the April 1986 nuclear power plant disaster that demonstrated the deep flaws of the Soviet regime.
Responding to the Chernobyl incident, the Soviet Union tried to create an impression among those it evacuated that nothing too bad had happened. Despite Moscow’s efforts to cover up the explosion, the world found out the truth just a few days later. Unfortunately for the Politburo, scientists in Sweden detected radioactive particles and traced them to somewhere in the western Soviet Union. The Soviet Union then admitted there had been an accident at the Chernobyl plant.
In the case of COVID-19, China first attempted to downplay the virus. The Wuhan local government stated that it was unusual pneumonia and denied it was contagious. However, the severity of the coronavirus became known to the rest of the world when the virus spread from person to person and traveled beyond China. Since then, the Chinese government has variably insisted that the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan wet market. Or that it somehow teleported 7,500 miles from Fort Detrick into Wuhan.
The lies are defining. Consider, for example, how the National Medical Library in Kyiv, on the order of the Soviet authorities, emptied shelves of books that contained the word “radiation.” When it comes to the coronavirus, which has killed millions of people worldwide, China has intimidated, censored, and “disappeared” those willing to tell the truth about what happened. Beijing has also limited outside access to the WIV, including to the World Health Organization. An organization, it must be noted, which has been all too willing to take China’s lies at face value.
The responses to Chernobyl and COVID-19 have shown the reflexive comfort with which communist authoritarian regimes resort to deception amid crisis. This is their reflex even where it is quickly clear that deception will cause far greater long-term harm.
As with Chernobyl, the very least we deserve from Xi Jinping is his accounting of the truth.
