By: Akhtar Khan & Nazish tariq
Two months ago, China reported its first case of the deadly outbreak known as the Corona Virus (COVID-19). This virus was first reported in Wuhan city, Hubei province and rapidly affected many people in Wuhan. It was initially described to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019. After five days of this deadly pandemic, the Chinese government enforced a lockdown of the Wuhan city. At the same time, WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency. This outbreak was an alarm for the whole world, and after two months, it was declared as a global pandemic by WHO.
Whereas this outbreak made the whole world tremble, it also started a new debate between many conspiracy theorists in the West, and others, who wanted to know the cause of the pandemic. Now the main question among the theorists is whether this outbreak is a natural pandemic or if it is new, manmade biological warfare or terrorism – created by Chinese scientists in the laboratory, or someone else.
There are different approaches for seeking the causes of this outbreak. The Chinese have indeed claimed that the virus is not created in the lab; it was generated from animal markets in Wuhan. On the other side, some theorists oppose the Chinese and have claimed it was generated by the Chinese to destroy the stock markets of world economies and win the tug of war against the USA.
The conspiracy theorists firstly debated that the pandemic was created by China. They made reference to a fiction book entitled ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. This book was published in 1999 and the authors have explained how a nation such as China would be able to crash the stock markets of superior countries through different means, mainly through biological warfare or terrorism. Second, they debated that if this pandemic is initiated from Wuhan, why was it not quickly transferred to other main cities of China and elsewhere in the land, but it rather spread quickly to Iran, Italy and Spain. Now, the virus has rapidly reached to almost all 200 counties in the world, affecting a total of more than 4 million people and lockdown of more than 2 billion people of the world.
This pandemic seems not to have affected the shares of huge Chinese companies such as Huawei, Alibaba and others. Conspiracy theorists believe that it was a pandemic created by China as part of its new economic trade war against the USA. According to these theorists, the Chinese are winning this trade war as the stock markets of USA, UK, and even Pakistan, have been severely damaged. China is importing oil from the Middle Eastern states at much lower prices than before and is boosting its economy.
Covid-19 is a very alarming issue of 2020 as there is no cure or vaccine for the virus with a high death rate. It is estimated that it will take a year or more to find any medical remedies. In the meantime, the pandemic is rapidly spreading and causing destruction in the whole world in all sectors of society, including health, private and government economy, and the political, social and psychological fabric of societies. Economies are likely to shrink and it may take decades to rebuild. In some way, the pandemic is a threat to the survival or at least development of mankind.
Every new day we hear report about new numbers of infected and deceased persons, generating more questions and fear about the pandemic, and how massive its spread and effects will be The only solution insight is that we protect ourselves from this pandemic through self-isolation, social distancing and other recommended measures. Thus, the spread can be delayed as we wait for medicines for vaccination and cure can be found and distributed. We must pray that the pandemic will end soon and that all countries can again develop economically, socially and in other ways.
In future, we must establish better defence systems against such natural or manmade epidemics and pandemics. Experts in WHO and other organizations and groups warn that the current pandemic will not be the last. In the past, there have been many types of communicable diseases and major plagues for which vaccines and cure have been found after the outbreaks. In recent decades, we have seen HIV/AIDS, SARS (also a Corona virus) and Ebola. We’d better be prepared for unknown and unimaginable threats even in future.
Conspiracy theorists may not be right in their theories, in fiction literature of otherwise, yet, there may be something to their theories that can help us develop better defence system in countries and internationally. This time, the enemy is not in one country, it is within all countries, and it spreads faster than any sane persons could have foreseen – except for conspiracy theorists.