London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2021. vi, 351 pp. US$30.00, cloth. ISBN 9781787384675.
The search for an explanation for the pandemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-2) has consumed the world for almost two years. Jasper Becker, former South China Morning Post Beijing bureau chief, approaches the problem with three related questions. First, what might be the responsibility of the governing party of the PRC, the CCP, in the failure to report critical details of the outbreak in Wuhan during the weeks of December 2019 and beginning of January 2020? Second, why is it important to discuss the pandemic’s origin in China (and the reason for why the CCP denies it)? Declarations by government and party spokespersons have suggested that the virus was brought to China from the United States or from Europe. Third, can the possibility of an accidental release of the SARS-2 virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), despite new indirect and tentative evidence, be discarded? In a major pronouncement published in the Lancet (March 2020), 27 prominent scientists “strongly condemned” consideration of this possibility, portraying it as a “conspiracy theory.”
The problem of involvement by People’s Liberation Army technicians and scientists, linked to the aggressive development of biotechnology, is discussed at length in chapters 4 through 6. It is in light of the three questions that we should read the section on this research, most importantly to clarify what the study is not proposing. It does not claim that the SARS-2 pandemic was initiated by the deployment of a weaponized pathogen, a notion that has clouded the important discussion of lab safety and possible WIV mishandling of viral samples. What is relevant in the background discussion in these chapters is the overriding imperatives of secrecy and party discipline, conditions that in the end may in fact frustrate the work of medical science in its mission to prepare for the next pandemic. In this regard, as time passes, the permanent loss or suppression of data at the WIV is one of the most serious dangers.
The account of the fateful events of December and January in chapters 17 through 20 presents to us, again, the mystery of how the impending crisis could have been concealed for so long. Not until January 22, 2020 was human-to-human transmission officially confirmed, even as the contagion was apparent (to the World Health Organization, for example) from emergency measures undertaken in December 2019. Medical professionals in Wuhan who called the alarm were censured and punished. Information from infections detected internationally from outgoing travellers shows that the outbreak was already underway in Hubei Province in November of 2019. For the highly efficient national public health services, shown to be so during SARS-1, tracing the contacts of the first patients would have been a straightforward task. For some time now, “[the] identity of the first person in the transmission chain must therefore be known” (208). But party doctrine and information control procedure explain the persistence in maintaining the narrative of foreign origin, especially in light of the conclusion, today evident to all, that wild animals at the Wuhan Seafood Market could not have been the origin from which the SARS-2 virus was transmitted to humans. A full 80 percent of initial cases had no connection to the market, and tests of the samples taken from animals came back negative (213–215). This section of the book, which recaps reporting in the public record, seeks to answer Becker’s first two questions.
Gain-of-function (GoF) research is at the centre of the controversy, with the risk of an accidental leak the subject of vigorous debate among virologists. Chapters 11 and 16 summarize the debate, and defer it for a future discussion because it truly is a thorny problem. Nevertheless, it goes to the heart of Becker’s third question, because, as this section of the book details, the risk entailed is enormous. There is a troubling history of lab accidents that have resulted in the escape of dangerous pathogens. Even in recent years, with greater investment of resources, no less than six leaks of the SARS-1 virus occurred, beginning in Singapore in 2003, one in Taiwan the same year, followed by four in Beijing. The United States temporarily suspended funding for GoF in 2014, postponing research until a risk assessment could be carried out. In China, no pause occurred despite warning signs marked by a serious dispute with the French scientists who collaborated on the construction of the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory in Wuhan, completed in 2017. The warning prompted US embassy staff to conduct visits to the WIV during 2018. Their report called attention to deficient procedures affecting the ability to “safely operate a [BSL] 4 laboratory and lack of clarity in related Chinese government policies and guidelines” (176). Reports have surfaced that coronavirus samples were being handled at BSL-2.
Here, Becker brings forward a matter of great concern: that the majority of scientists working in the field, still today, are not asking the difficult questions. With few exceptions, they have not challenged the view expressed last year in the Lancet, which appeared to be more a political argument than a scientific assessment. Aside from considerations of future access and cooperation, the material and professional incentives to avoid criticism of the PRC/CCP are strong. A notable dissenting voice might be Ralph Baric, himself a leading proponent of GoF and close colleague of WIV staff, who signed the letter titled “Investigate the origins of Covid-19,” published in Science (May 2021), contradicting the authors of the Lancet condemnation. The signers state clearly that both theories, of zoonotic spillover and of accidental lab release, are still viable: “the two theories [have not been] given balanced consideration.”
Lest readers suspect that this book presents an entirely pessimistic landscape, the author concludes with the story of a conquest of science: the unprecedented development, in record time, of an innovative vaccine technology. Future advances on the mRNA vaccine may well save our children’s generation from a true catastrophe.
Norbert Francis
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff