If the lab leak Covid-19 theory gains more traction, what are the political implications for China and the U.S.?

Jonathan Maimon
9 min readMay 24, 2021

It’s becoming clear that the “lab leak” hypothesis is now the most probable hypothesis for the origins of Covid-19.

Nicholas Wade, former science writer at the NY Times for four decades, wrote an absolutely blistering critique based in scientific and genetic evidence for why the most likely explanation of Covid-19’s origin is from a lab in Wuhan.

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

There was a lot to unpack here, and one interesting thing I learned is that many of the experiments done on bat coronaviruses at the lab were done at BSL-2 (Biosecurity Level 2) instead of BSL-4, because of the way they were classified.

Before 2020, the rules followed by virologists in China and elsewhere required that experiments with the SARS1 and MERS viruses be conducted in BSL3 conditions. But all other bat coronaviruses could be studied in BSL2, the next level down. BSL2 requires taking fairly minimal safety precautions, such as wearing lab coats and gloves, not sucking up liquids in a pipette, and putting up biohazard warning signs. Yet a gain-of-function experiment conducted in BSL2 might produce an agent more infectious than either SARS1 or MERS. And if it did, then lab workers would stand a high chance of infection, especially if unvaccinated.

Much of Shi’s work on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level, as is stated in her publications and other documents. She has said in an interview with Science magazine that “[t]he coronavirus research in our laboratory is conducted in BSL-2 or BSL-3 laboratories.”

Also, Peter Daszak, the person who from the very beginning propagated the “animal host” origin, had an opportunity to tell the world the truth when the virus first emerged, but instead, chose to lie and is probably one of the most easily responsible people for the Covid outbreak, along with Shi Zhengli.

The story is quite simple. The NIH and NIAID funded research grants, that Peter Daszak applied for and then when won, the funding went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology where it was used to study bat coronaviruses and make them more deadly in an attempt to understand how SARS-1 spread.

When it became clear that there was a huge risk in December 2019, Daszak denied or covered up the idea that Covid-19 could have escaped from a lab.

Had he been more clear about it, the U.S. could have stopped flights to and from China immediately, and much more carefully begun to test for the virus early and in earnest, even under a generally incompetent Trump administration. The rest of the world could have done the same.

So U.S. funded, Daszak the Brit sent the money, and the Chinese conducted the research under BSL-2 conditions. So who’s guilty?

When it became clear that there was a huge risk in December 2019, Daszak denied or covered up the idea that Covid-19 could have escaped from a lab.

Unpacking guilt

Much like the financial crisis in 2008, there were a number of players.

American consumers borrowed money for homes they couldn’t afford, which were written by mortgage lenders (Countrywide Financial being the largest) who knew they couldn’t pay them back, who sold those loans to large banks who didn’t really know what was in the individual loans but packaged them up into mortgage-backed securities, who then got ratings from credit rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s) about their likelihood of defaulting, and these were purchased by institutional investors who weren’t really sure what exactly was in these securities but don’t have time to do very very in-depth research (I know because I used to work as one), and this was all overseen by the federal government, who made it easy for people without good credit to get mortgage loans and to implicitly act as a “backstop” for bad loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In one paragraph you can see that it’s too simplistic to say “the big banks caused the financial crisis”. It was a systemic problem, which in hindsight seems obvious, but at the time, it was hard to see the forest from the trees. The major players were:

  1. American consumers who knew they couldn’t afford to pay back mortgages on the house they were buying
  2. Mortgage lenders who knew they were writing loans to people who couldn’t pay them back
  3. Large banks who didn’t really care about doing due diligence on these loans
  4. Credit rating agencies who chose too conservative assumptions when stress testing their models
  5. Institutional investors who have to buy something so they’ll buy what’s offered
  6. Federal government who was asleep at the wheel for too long, including the Federal Reserve who didn’t properly regulate the large investment banks.
Before the crisis, it was hard to see the forest from the trees of individual players

Now if you’re cynical, like many are, it’s easy to say, “well everyone is a grifter or a crook”. There are people who like to say “both political parties are crooks” or “the entire system is stacked against me”. There might be some truth to these arguments, but ultimately, in this chain of 6 major players in the financial crisis, I’d argue some are more culpable than others.

My own belief is that the two biggest transgressors were the “mortgage lenders”, specifically Countrywide, who wrote loans that they knew had to be garbage as they were the ones reviewing the creditworthiness of lenders. The second transgressor was the federal government, who loosened and loosened regulation for a long time without thinking through the consequences of a mortgage system where there are no checks and balances.

Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO and Chairman of Countrywide Financial, is probably most at blame, and he escaped with nary a jail sentence. From 2001–2006, he earned $470 million in compensation and by 2009, his firm was responsible for a large part of the great damage to the American economy. He got off with a fine from the SEC, but never served jail.

My own belief is that the two biggest transgressors were the “mortgage lenders”, specifically Countrywide, who wrote loans as they were the ones reviewing the creditworthiness of borrowers. The second transgressor was the federal government, who loosened and loosened regulation for a long time without thinking through the consequences of a mortgage system where there are no checks and balances.

The movie Inside Job does a good assessment of who should be accountable in that case.

I can’t wait for the same documentary to come out in 2023 about Covid’s origins.

The Major Players in the Covid-19 Origins

Much like the financial crisis, let’s break it down into the individual players and the system at play.

  1. U.S. government health agencies, like the NIH and NIAID were interested in studying coronaviruses given the spread of SARS in the early 2000s and to learn more about it.
  2. U.S. based contractor Eco Health, led by Peter Daszak, were awarded the grant, who then subcontracted the science and experiments to China and published many of the papers.
  3. The Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted experiments, to make the virus more transmissible via experiment.
  4. Peter Daszak was aware that these viruses don’t have a vaccine, and was interviewed saying as much, December 9, 2019!!
  5. Some of the virus escaped, and people got sick, and once it became clear the hospitals were getting crowded with a strange new disease, the Chinese government began to cover up the extent of it, and instituted strict lockdowns in Wuhan.

Now, who’s to blame?

While the U.S. government funds a million different research, the one area they should be blamed for is they were warned the Wuhan lab was not up to the right safety standards. But ultimately, the funding for science can’t be blamed here.

If you give a child a $50 gift, and that child later turns out to be a criminal, do you get blamed?

In this instance, the lab itself was working with highly dangerous coronaviruses and a safety level far below than what they should have been.

Much of Shi’s work on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level, as is stated in her publications and other documents. She has said in an interview with Science magazine that “[t]he coronavirus research in our laboratory is conducted in BSL-2 or BSL-3 laboratories.”

“It is clear that some or all of this work was being performed using a biosafety standard — biosafety level 2, the biosafety level of a standard US dentist’s office — that would pose an unacceptably high risk of infection of laboratory staff upon contact with a virus having the transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2,” Ebright says.

In this case I see two primary people who deserve the blame and accountability — the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Shi Zhengli), and Peter Daszak.

Daszak may quickly become the person, along with Shi, who deserve most of the blame for Covid. Rather than admitting the significance of the crisis, he instead chose to cover it up and wrote a letter deflecting any blame for it in early 2020.

Daszak was the one who directly funded the research, and had 100% the accountability to ensure it was being done in a way that was safe and secure. The U.S. government can’t possibly be responsible here for the millions of grants they issue each year.

Now I hope you see the parallel to the financial crisis. The mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial, who were ON THE GROUND, actually writing the loans, would have known that what they were doing was going to blow up spectacularly.

Daszak was ON THE GROUND having co-published many papers with Zhengli and directly funded the research. He would have known as soon as the virus appeared to escape that the risk could be systemic. Rather than alert the public, he chose to cover it up and deny it.

Daszak may be the worst systemic crisis criminal Angelo Mozilo. Will Daszak make any apologies for his role in this crisis?

I doubt it. Mozilo didn’t.

Will Peter Daszak make any apologies for his role in covering up the damage of Covid-19?

Political implications of a Chinese lab leak

Let’s assume a year from now it becomes the position of the U.S. Government that Covid did in fact originate from a lab in Wuhan. Does this change anything?

I don’t think this changes a thing.

If a more belligerent and erratic President was in power, perhaps Trump once again god forbid in 2024, would he use the Covid crisis as a justification for an attack on China? He very well might.

I think China’s blame is that they covered it up, but what government wants to take blame on a crisis. I don’t think the Chinese government needs to be defended, they are heinous in terms of making up theories that Covid originated in Maryland and they didn’t share enough with the world early enough for how bad the virus was.

But what I could foresee is let’s say China tries to do something like invade Taiwan this decade, it may be easier to justify a counter-attack by saying, “the Chinese government covered up Covid!” It’s a simple line to evoke emotion and anger, that could help justify a counter-attack by the U.S. or other countries against China in the event of a future conflict.

So once the U.S. government accepts that Covid did in fact come from a Chinese lab (granted funded by U.S. research dollars), it will make any future conflict with China more unstable. That’s the political implication, it has only added more uncertainty to what every passing year seems like a more and more inevitable conflict between the U.S. (and other countries) against China.

I can’t remember where I read this, but somewhere I read that no country has militarized as quickly and as large as China without it ending in a full-scale war. We’ve seen this countless times in the 20th century (Japan, Germany), and the 19th (Napoleon) and the 18th (the British/Spanish fleets), etc…there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t repeat in 21st century.

So once the U.S. government accepts that Covid did in fact come from a Chinese lab (granted funded by U.S. research dollars), it will destabilize any future conflict with China.

For those who say the Cold War never turned hot you only have to look at Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Central America, to see all the places the conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were very deadly and caused immense damage.

Covid-19, and the 3 million people it killed, may be a precursor or justification for an inevitable conflict with China.

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