Let the Spooks Speak on Covid

"If the U.S. intelligence agencies adhered to the mandated schedule, and there's nothing magical about 90 days, the White House on Tuesday received spookdom's report on the origins of Covid 19.

Leaks already indicate the 18 agencies couldn't settle an internal disagreement over whether a natural origin or a lab release was more likely. There is much else they might usefully say, though, in the declassified release the administration has talked about making public in the next few days.

With 100% confidence, the agencies could certainly tell us that China has engaged in a deliberate coverup. With some degree of confidence, they might tell us whether they believe China itself knows how Covid got started.

The agencies could estimate how committed Xi Jinping and his regime are to the propaganda claim that the virus originated outside the country, perhaps in the U.S. Army facility at Fort Detrick, Md. They might tell us about China's efforts to steal the secrets of the West's superior vaccines.

On a related question, they could estimate how long China will stick with its zero-Covid policy, which has required a deepening, Mao-like control over its population and China's re-isolation from the world.

If news reporting is correct, China is sitting on samples from early Covid infections and much other information it hasn't shared. A Bloomberg News investigation elaborates on a point made by this column: China's leadership would likely be covering up even a natural origin, "embarrassed that its citizens were still eating wild animals bought in wet markets -- a well-known path for zoonotic disease transmission that China tried unsuccessfully to outlaw almost 20 years ago."

China's scientists would know with documentary certainty by now whether the virus is related to one held and possibly manipulated in a government-run lab. Thus it matters whether secret evidence shows they are still trying to find answers to Covid's origins.

The Economist magazine suggests that, following on the work of private researchers, U.S. intelligence supercomputers may have scoured the web for traces of deleted viral sequences once housed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

CNN, citing leaks, reports that the agencies may be in possession of Wuhan lab records that the Chinese mysteriously tried to take offline in September 2019, weeks before the Wuhan outbreak became publicly known.

The stakes are rising, geopolitically and politically. Once the story seemed to be that China, with its strange dietary fetishes and industrially primitive food markets, inflicted the virus on the world. The integrated, rules-based, freedom-based outside world saved the day with mRNA vaccines.

That story is less satisfying now that Delta has emerged. Our vaccines, however fabulous, are proving not a one-and-done fix. Everybody now seems to have a Delta breakthrough story. In my circle, multiple acquaintances talk about colleagues or family members who previously had Covid, were vaccinated, and now have tested positive for Covid again.

More than ever, coping with the virus seems likely to involve long-term adjustments. We might take with a couple of sacks of salt reports this week that China beat down its own Delta outbreak spread over 17 provinces by conducting 100 million tests in a matter of days, including testing every resident of one city 12 times.

Whether China can carry on this way is doubtful. In the meantime, it has effectively entered into a biological-cum-chemical standoff with the outside world. The global population's immune systems are being hardened by multiple exposures as well as by vaccination, and people are getting back to normal life after much loss and suffering.

China's increasingly virulent propaganda is aimed not at outsiders but at its own people, neutralizing what is bound to be a growing disgruntlement over recurrent iron-fisted lockdowns, over having to wait in lines repeatedly for mandatory testing, over the loss of tourism dollars, the loss of domestic and foreign travel and education opportunities, the loss of income and opportunities of every kind.

The Delta surge is complicating what should be a U.S. shining recovery and renewing U.S. political fights over masks, vaccine mandates, schools and deteriorating hospital care in some locations.

The Biden administration has more reason now to treat the intelligence report on Covid's origins as a chance to lay down a tougher line on China's role in bringing this calamity on the world." [1]

1. Let the Spooks Speak on Covid
Jenkins, Holman W; Jr.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 25 Aug 2021: A.15.