＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・パンデミックとなった新型コロナの原因究明は必要！中国の生物化学兵器なら怖い
<Added 2024/2/18> There have been reports that “the genetic information for the coronavirus was identified by Chinese researchers at the end of 2019, before the Chinese authorities made an announcement.” There are suspicions that the coronavirus is a Chinese biological and chemical weapon.
Information that the genome analysis of the coronavirus had been completed by the end of December 2019 was circulating at the beginning of 2020.
The WHO requested information from the Chinese government, but it has been pointed out that the information was provided late. It is suspected that the one-week delay in the WHO’s declaration of a “public health emergency of international concern” at the January 2020 expert meeting was also due to China’s wishes.
Even when the WHO dispatched its investigation team afterward, it did not have access to all agencies.
By the time the emergency was declared, a considerable number of flights had departed from Wuhan both domestically and internationally, and the coronavirus spread worldwide.
<Nikkei Shimbun (January 18, 2024) report>
It has been revealed that researchers within China may have identified the novel coronavirus “SARS-CoV-2” and completed genome (complete genetic information) analysis by the end of 2019. This raises suspicions that they understood the nature of the virus before the Chinese government shared its analysis information with the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2020.
This was announced on the 17th by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee as part of its investigation into the origin of the coronavirus.
According to the E&C Committee’s report, the coronavirus genome information was submitted on December 28, 2019, by Dr. Lili Ren, a virologist at the Chinese government-affiliated Institute of Pathogenic Biology, to GenBank, a gene sequence database under the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
GenBank collects and makes publicly available genetic information on organisms and microorganisms from researchers around the world. When additional information necessary for publication on the site was requested from Dr. Ren, no response was received. Therefore, the submitted genome information was deleted without being made public.
The findings were “almost identical” (according to US authorities) to the coronavirus genome later officially released by the Chinese government.
According to the WHO’s timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic published in January 2020, China identified the virus causing the coronavirus on January 7th of that year and reported to the WHO on January 12th that it had completed genome analysis. These findings suggest that the Chinese government had completed its analysis of the causative virus more than two weeks before internationally releasing the genome information.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the genome information of the causative virus formed the basis for infection control measures and vaccine development in various countries. There are suspicions that China may have known this crucial information in the early stages but was reluctant to share it early, which may have contributed to the spread of the infection.
The E&C Commission commented that these findings “raise doubts about the timing of the virus recognition claimed by the Chinese Communist Party.”
<Added 2023/2/27> Reports indicate the US Department of Energy has determined the coronavirus may have leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
The following report was published by “Asahi Shimbun Digital”:
The Wall Street Journal reported on the 26th that the U.S. Department of Energy has determined that the novel coronavirus most likely originated from a leak in a Chinese laboratory. This conclusion is based on newly classified information and has been reported to the White House and senior members of Congress. However, within the U.S. government, opinions are divided, with some agencies supporting the theory that the virus was transmitted to humans through animals.
According to the WSJ, the Department of Energy, while stating that its “certainty is low,” has concluded that the virus spread due to an accidental outbreak at a Chinese laboratory. The Department of Energy oversees U.S. national laboratories that conduct cutting-edge biological research and possesses “considerable scientific expertise.”
Other government agencies, including the FBI, also support the laboratory leak theory. The National Intelligence Council and four other agencies support the animal transmission theory, while two agencies, including the CIA, have not yet reached a conclusion on which theory to support.
1. Various Theories Regarding the Cause of the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
The “novel coronavirus pneumonia” originated in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, but spread rapidly throughout the world.
Around the end of January 2020, when the infection of “novel coronavirus pneumonia” began to spread rapidly worldwide, theories circulated regarding its origin, such as “it originated from a seafood market in Wuhan” or “it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
US President Trump repeatedly referred to the “novel coronavirus” as the “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus,” and asserted that the “Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin.”
China countered this with an unsubstantiated claim that “the US military may have brought it to Wuhan.”
Afterward, the world became preoccupied with treating and responding to the “novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19)” pandemic, and the topic faded from public attention.
Meanwhile, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, China intensified its attempts to change the status quo through military force in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
Furthermore, China is attempting to strengthen its influence and control over African countries and other nations through “mask diplomacy” and “vaccine diplomacy.”
2. China’s inexplicable response at the beginning and after the spread of the “novel coronavirus pneumonia” outbreak
(1) Detaining the doctor who first reported the outbreak of “novel coronavirus pneumonia”
Dr. Li Wenliang (pictured above), an ophthalmologist who was the first in the world to warn the world about the dangers of the “novel coronavirus pneumonia” that originated in Wuhan, China, before the Chinese authorities officially announced it, was detained by Wuhan police for “making false statements” and “spreading rumors.”
Dr. Li warned fellow doctors about the novel coronavirus via chat on December 30, 2019, and was temporarily detained by police on January 3.
Dr. Li subsequently returned to the medical field, treated patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia, and became infected himself. He ultimately died from “novel coronavirus pneumonia” on February 7, 2020.
(2) Closure and demolition of the “Wuhan Seafood Market,” suspected as the source of the outbreak
On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan Health Commission closed the “Huanan Seafood Market” in Wuhan, which was considered the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
If the Chinese authorities had been more open with information at this point and allowed the WHO investigation team to enter the Huanan Seafood Market, the pandemic might not have escalated to the extent it is today.
The Huanan Seafood Market has been fenced off and access restricted to authorized personnel since January 1, 2020, with no prospect of reopening. However, on April 8 of this year, it was reported that the Wuhan city authorities planned to demolish the seafood market.
This is seen as an attempt to dispel the impression that COVID-19 spread from China to the world by demolishing the market, the epicenter of the infection, and to project an image of Wuhan’s recovery from the virus to both domestic and international audiences.
(3) Closure (or bombing?) of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was suspected to be the source of the outbreak.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, another suspected source of the outbreak, was reportedly temporarily closed in October 2019, and there are also claims that it was bombed in February 2020.
Furthermore, in January 2020, there were reports that “the Hubei Provincial Health Commission ordered a Wuhan genomics company to stop testing the new virus and destroy all samples,” and that “the Chinese Health Commission ordered research institutions not to release any information about the unknown disease and to send samples held by laboratories to designated testing facilities or destroy them.”
(4) WHO’s investigation team delayed by a year
Even the WHO’s international investigation, finally conducted at the end of January this year, failed to determine the origin of the coronavirus or the course of its spread. It is understandable that some suspect the year-long delay in the investigation was an attempt to destroy evidence.
Furthermore, actions such as the “demolition of the seafood market” and the “closure (or bombing?) of the Wuhan Institute of Virology” can only be suspected of being “intended to permanently destroy evidence and make it impossible to determine the cause.”
3. It’s frightening if it’s a biological or chemical weapon.
Robert Redfield, former director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and a virologist, stated in an interview with CNN on March 27 that the virus may have leaked from a laboratory.
I don’t think the coronavirus somehow infected humans from bats and immediately became one of the most infectious viruses between humans. It usually takes time for a pathogen to become efficiently transmissible between people. People may not believe the lab leak theory, but science will eventually find the answer. My guess is that the virus started spreading in Wuhan around September or October of 2019.
Dr. Redfield believes that a coronavirus, being studied for efficient infection within the lab, leaked when a lab employee became infected in September or October of 2019, and that it became known as COVID-19 several months later.
While there is no concrete evidence, if the coronavirus were a biological or chemical weapon developed by China, it would be a very frightening scenario.
This would violate the Biological and Chemical Weapons Convention (BWC), which came into effect in 1975 (Japanese name: “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction”).
Incidentally, China is a signatory to both the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
More than a year has passed since the outbreak, and given China’s attempts to conceal evidence, and the fact that the WHO is a pro-China UN agency, the credibility of on-site investigation reports is low, uncovering the true origin may be difficult.
However, even if the virus was accidentally released rather than intentionally spread at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or even if it originated from wild bats, it undoubtedly spread from Wuhan, and similar incidents could occur again in the future.
I believe a thorough investigation by an independent organization, primarily based in Europe and the US, rather than one like the WHO which is biased towards China, is necessary.