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Members of a police sanitation team spray disinfectant as a preventive measure against the spread of the coronavirus.
Members of a police sanitation team spray disinfectant as a preventive measure against the spread of the coronavirus.
A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place "to protect the people's health," Xi said, because lab safety is a "national security" issue.
Xi didn't actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swaths of China had escaped from one of the country's bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive titled: "Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus."
Comment: The media, it seems, is finally cottoning on to China's mistake. As we published last month: Did Coronavirus outbreak originate in a lab? Novel sequence in 2019-nCoV Virus genome suggests man-made cause
'The markets' are freaking out about the Coronavirus outbreak, but this is largely due to the manner in which it has been handled by the Chinese government, the WHO and other governments following their lead. At this point it seems pretty clear to us that the Coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, central China - location of that country's ONLY Level 4 biolab - because of an accidental release during vaccine trials, at which point it may have mutated further, leaving the Chinese authorities worried that it's only another mutation or two away from becoming truly pandemic.
As things stand, this outbreak is NOT pandemic, and the chances of it doing so are low. A death toll of 2,600 globally after 2 months is NOT a 'return of the Black Death'. This doesn't mean such is not in the cards in the not-too-distant future, but CoVid-19 is probably not it. The Chinese authorities, by their actions, gave away their culpability in causing this, and have likely given us a glimpse into how authorities the world over will attempt to contain future outbreaks.