The Daily Telegraph, 28 November, Matt Ridley
Michael Gove has told the covid inquiry that “a significant body of judgement… believes that the virus itself was man-made”. He was immediately slapped down by the lead counsel to the Inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, who insisted that this “somewhat divisive issue” was outside the inquiry’s scope.
But why is this? The origin of the virus is the mastodon in the room. If, as Mr Gove seemed to imply, it was indeed souped up in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, equipped with a thing called a furin cleavage site so it could infect lungs instead of guts, injected into transgenic humanised mice so it could train on human lungs, then that would explain why it was so extremely infectious from the outset, unlike every other emerging virus.
This in turn would explain why it was so darned impossible to contain, and why no country managed to do so, whatever its plan. Surely this is of relevance to the inquiry?
Meanwhile, stampeding crowds of Chinese citizens are seeking hospital care for respiratory problems – again. The Chinese authorities tell us it’s simply down to a bad outbreak of flu, and not another novel virus cooked up in one of their laboratories.
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