False Conspiracy Mongering : China's Novel Coronavirus

"The Chinese Communist Party sees itself as engaged in a global competition over the narrative surrounding COVID-19, its origins and government responses."
"The disinformation, the conspiracy theory peddling and the wild and unsubstantiated accusations are prime examples."
We have not seen the last Li Wenliang. The question his case raises is whether the next Li Wenliang will even have the opportunity to send that first message."
Julian Gewirtz, The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies

"People of the world have all witnessed that it is under the leadership of the CPC [Communist Party of China] that the Chinese people achieved independence, freedom and liberation and made enormous progress in national development."
"It is also under the leadership of the CPC that the Chinese national united as one and speedily fought against COVID-19, buying precious time for the global response."
Chinese Embassy, Ottawa

A doctor examines a patient who is infected by the coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.

STR/AFP via Getty Images

A University of Toronto Internet watchdog, The Citizen Lab, had reported the blocking of key words by a Chinese livestreaming platform in late December, related to the coronavirus outbreak. Following that, a broader censorship followed. And Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, was sealed into military-style lockdown on January 23. Its eleven million people were virtually prisoners in their own homes, as the frightening new virus leading to pneumonia and death for many, swept through the city and the region.

To the world's misfortune, that lockdown came too late. China's attempts to shield knowledge of the new coronavirus from the outside world led it to ignore the impending disaster, to allow millions of Wuhan residents to fan out from the city during the Chinese New Year in the customary tradition of returning home to visit with family. Those visitors took with them an alarming infectious rate, not only within China, but to the world outside as well.

In Canada, the first case of COVID-19 emerged a mere three days later, on January 25 when a traveller who had been to Wuhan returned to Canada. More latterly, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Lijian Zhao, has used the specious auspices of a Montreal-based, conspiracy-theory group called Centre for Research on Globalization to 'legitimize' its contention that COVID-19 did not emerge in China, at all. It was deliberately brought by U.S. soldiers last November to Wuhan with the intention of initiating a vicious viral war.

A pangolin, mammal thought a possible intermediate host for the coronavirus.

This conspiracy-pushing group that honours decrepit versions of 9/11 that not Islamist terrorists but the CIA conspired to destroy the World Trade Centers, delighted Mr.Lijian in its take on the Wuhan virus, who then tweeted "It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent!"
Beijing followed up by recent suggestions the virus could have originated in Italy. And now Beijing is ennobling the doctor they first criminalized, who was arrested after alerting his colleagues about a mysterious new type of pneumonia showing up in Wuhan hospitals.

And while China receives praise from the World Health Organization over its self-described timely and efficient halt to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the U.S. is shaping up as an epicentre of the viral contamination, following Italy's and Spain's ongoing crisis in trying to control the runaway contagion. This new virus is a close cousin of SARS, so much so it is classified as SARS/cov-2. SARS, another high-death-rate virus which originated in a Chinese wet-market, did not have the astonishing infectious impetus of COVID-19.

Closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Wuhan.  Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

With the emergence of the novel coronavirus and patients admitted to hospital with a mystery pneumonia, health care workers wee infected, among them eight doctors, including ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, all who were brought in by police to be accused of spreading false rumours, and forced to humbly recant. Li contracted the virus and died of it in February. When, eventually officials made public acknowledgement of the virus they claimed it was not serious. Which led to a holiday banquet attended by 40,000 people taking place in Wuhan on January 13, and the rest is history.

Between the banquet and the millions of holiday-goers leaving Wuhan the explosion of infection began globally. Live wild game sold at 'wet' markets spawned over the years various zoonotic transmissions from animal host to human victim. This was just another one, with an explosive spread, and a deadly message. Beijing has been busy crafting a new version of events; not only that the virus originated elsewhere, but that Chinese authorities took immediate remedial action to counter its spread.

A worker in a protective suit at the closed seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, January 10, 2020. The seafood market is linked to the outbreak of the pneumonia caused by the new strain of coronavirus, but some patients diagnosed with the new coronavirus deny exposure to this market. (Stringer/Reuters)