COVID ORIGINS

plugs into several circumstantial clues that strengthen the theory.

A Who-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said in a report issued in March that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that “introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway”.

But, at the same time, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team “expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data” relating to the outbreak at the Wuhan wet market and that the they had not been able to carry out adequate assessment of the lab leak possibility. “Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions,” he said at the time.

WHO is currently reviewing the recommendations in this report to prepare a proposal for director-general on the next studies to be carried out.

In March, Biden had tasked the US intelligence community to prepare a report on the origin of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a “laboratory accident”.

Biden said on Wednesday that he had received the report earlier this month and asked for an additional follow-up as the intelligence community had “coalesced around two likely scenarios” but hadn’t reached a definitive conclusion.

Biden asked the intelligence community to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days”.

As part of this follow up, Biden outlined “areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China”. He said the US will work with like-minded partners around the world to “press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence”.

On Thursday, China’s foreign ministry responded to Biden’s move by saying the US was playing politics as the WHO study had concluded the “lab leak” theory was unlikely. Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also dismissed this theory as a conspiracy.

“Some people in the US completely ignore facts and science,” Zhao said.

The scientific community has been divided over what to make of the clues till now. In early May, science writer Nicholas

Wade cited existing research to support the need to keep the lab leak theory on the table.

Wade included several arguments: One, if the virus was naturally found in the famous horseshoe bats of Yunnan, how, or whether at all, it travelled all the way to Wuhan, at least 1,500km away; two, how the Sars-cov-2 virus appeared to have come fully evolved to optimally target humans, unlike the Sars-cov virus, responsible for South Asia Respiratory Syndrome, that evolved over time; and three – a unique protein folding known as the furin cleavage site, which has not been found in other betacoronaviruses.

However, some scientists have disputed some of the biological inferences being drawn, particularly in the context of the furin cleavage site. “FCSS (furin cleavage sites) are abundant, including being highly prevalent in coronaviruses. While SARSCOV-2 is the first example of a SARS virus with an FCS, other betacoronaviruses (the genus for SARS-COV-2) have FCSS, including MERS and HKU1,” wrote immunologist and infectious disease genomics specialist at Scripps Research Institute, Kristian G Andersen.

The questions about what clues China may hold are further strengthened by the lack of a resurgence in cases in the country. A country with the world’s highest population, China has recorded no new wave of infections since when the outbreak began.

It recorded 7,280 new cases at its peak, on February 14, 2020 and the only time infections rose again in any significant manner was in mid January, 2021, when the 7-day average of new cases was a little under 2,000 for a few days.

The country, however, is known to deploy a strong infection suppression and tracking strategy, at times carrying out surge testing of cities full of millions of people within a period of days. id19 pandemic.

It lists the PM’S interventions including approval for purchase of oxygen concentrators and other materials from the Pm-cares fund, his virtual meetings with chief ministers to push for more testing and vaccination sites, and his engagements with various stakeholders including doctors and scientists.

According to government officials who asked not to be named, the report will be published online.

Among some of the schemes that have come in for special mention are the Udan or regional connectivity scheme. While these were suspended during last year’s lockdown, they have been restored in phases and by February, 315 routes were operational.

The report also mentions the increase in the FDI cap in defence through the automatic route to 74% from 49%, a move aimed at boosting local manufacture of defence equipment.

It also focuses on the Jal Jeevan mission which has, since June 2020, provided almost 4.5 million new water connections.

Criticised for its handling of the migrant worker crisis in 2020 -- after the lockdown, many of them, rendered jobless and homeless chose to walk back home in the absence of any other forms of transport -- the government last year announced the creation of rental accommodation for them near their place of work.

These will be available by 2022, the draft said.