When the Covid 19 outbreak happened in China in late 2019, the Communist nation concealed it and did not forewarn the world immediately. It took more than two months to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) about the spread of the virus. By imposing a very severe lockdown, China controlled the spread of the disease, but the virus rapidly spread to other parts of the world, particularly the USA and Europe.

Most people across the world suspected that Covid 19 originated at a laboratory in Wuhan - the capital of central China’s Hubei province – and there were wild reports that many scientists working in the lab had died.  There was another version that the virus was generated in a wet market in China. However, till today, China has not given any explanation as to how the virus came to be in Wuhan. 

On the other hand, it continued to deny that the virus first emerged in Wuhan and went to the ridiculous extent of stating that it originated in some other part of the world and even mentioned India as a possible birthplace!

Wuhan virus?

In any case, China controlled the spread of the virus in Wuhan  by introducing draconian measures in addition to adopting many other strategies. Many who suspect that the Covid virus originated in Wuhan, term it as the "Wuhan virus" and the term has now come to stay.  Many believe that China quickly controlled the spread of the virus  “as China which developed the virus has also developed an antidote for it”.

When China had almost recovered from the Covid 19 crisis, the US and Europe were the worst hit. Former US president Donald Trump accused China of deliberately spreading the virus to Europe,  and the USA and other parts of the world. He also severely criticized the WHO, which is supposed to monitor the world health scenario, of deliberately not blaming China and accused WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of partisan behavior.

The ground reality is that China for long denied permission to WHO or any other agency to investigate how the virus happened in China and, finally, when it did give the go-ahead to WHO to visit China, no worthwhile conclusion was arrived at by the apex health organization. Some scientists, part of the WHO investigation team, said they were not given the freedom by the Chinese government to carry out the investigation in the way they wanted.

Pharma plot?

Meanwhile, there are a lot of reports floating in the media that the Covid 19 virus was deliberately planned by a few pharmaceutical companies, who prepared themselves to meet the possible demand for various equipment and need resulting from the crisis to make a huge profit.

As of now, everything is speculation and rumor and nobody seems to clearly know the ground realities.

Even as the vaccines have been developed to treat Covid 19 patients, the second wave has now started. The peculiarity of the second wave is that China has not been affected and major parts of the world have escaped any severe outbreak, but the most hit nation is India. While China and several European countries and the USA have lifted the restrictions imposed to combat the Covid 19 crisis to some extent, India has been overwhelmed by the second wave crisis.

India baiting

Unfortunately, the second wave is being termed as the “India variant” by some irresponsible media personnel around the world, as if India has developed it. India is a very transparent country unlike China and nothing is concealed in India.  However, it is gratifying that WHO has said that it has not associated the term India Variant with B.1.617, which is now classified by WHO as a variant of concern.

All said and done, it is necessary that international media stop using the term “India variant”, as such coinages are not only uncharitable, but extremely irresponsible.

What causes extreme concern is that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in India is battling hard to overcome the second wave crisis, a section of political parties and pledged critics in the media and elsewhere have been accusing the government of not anticipating the second wave and not taking precautionary measures, as if anyone can anticipate the second wave in advance. While the critics have their own motives, the disturbing fact is that such accusations and criticism coming from within India are weakening the country’s battle against the second wave.

What is gratifying in this grim scenario is that governments of several countries are not criticizing India, but doing their level best to support the nation in this hour of grim crisis.

It is surprising that the Modi baiters in India do not exhibit the  responsible attitude that several countries are showing.At this stage, one is not sure as to when the second wave crisis would end in India and whether it would be followed by a third wave, as speculated by some “forecasters”.

International probe

If the ongoing second wave is due to what some people call a “biological war” against India by some external agency, then the world should investigate with extreme care and caution and ensure that such biological war would never happen in the world in the future. The truth behind Covid 19 and its second wave should be thoroughly investigated, so that the world knows whether it is God-made or man-made.

Who would do this investigation? Certainly, the United Nations cannot do it, as it has reduced itself to a discussion forum and a debating club. WHO, part of the UN, cannot also do it as its credibility has been damaged severely and seems to be functioning now more as an analytical laboratory.

India must take the initiative to organize an international team to investigate the origin of Covid 19 and the second wave and one can be sure that several researchers around the world will be willing to help the probe team, so that the truth is revealed, doubts are put to rest and any guilty agencies remain condemned in the opinion of the world.

(The writer is a Trustee, NGO Nandini Voice for the Deprived, Chennai. The views are personal. He can be contacted at nsvenkatchennai@gmail.com)