Could SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 Be a Biological Weapon?

Dear Editor-in-Chief

In recent years, especially after 9/11, following every epidemic, and especially the pandemic, is the thought of the world. Was Corona pandemic a biological attack? A novel coronavirus (COVID-19), called SARS-CoV-2, is a new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses found in both animals and humans. Some infect people and are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases (1).

There are some facts here: Not provable, is a very famous character of Biological Weapon (BW). Wuhan Virology Lab in Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has the potential for generating BW. (2) According to forecasts China’s share of Global Economic Growth would be 27% in 2020. (3)

In Jan 2 articles were published by Washington Times which claimed the virus was part of a Chinese biological weapons program, based at the WIV (4). This claim was rejected by BBC and later by Washington Post, published an article debunking the conspiracy theory, citing US experts. Again, in Feb, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton suggested that the virus may have been a Chinese bioweapon (5). The Financial Times reported from virus expert and global co-lead coronavirus investigator, Trevor Bedford, who said that “There is no evidence whatsoever of genetic engineering that we can find”, and that, “The evidence we have is that the mutations (in the virus) are completely consistent with natural evolution” (6). Dr. Trevor Bedford is an Assistant Member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center affiliated with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division and with the Computational Biology Program.

These have been very formal discussions in this regard, and as previously mentioned many other arguments in Social Networks. In most of the cases, the discussions are about BW from WIV and the claims are rejected by special news agencies or special persons. However, the question remains owing to some reasons: Is it reasonable that if WIV has this virus, admit it? If a country makes a genetic change and uses it as a weapon, does it announce? Will the impact on the state of the world economy be predictable? The world economy is influenced by China’s economic status as the world’s second-largest economic power. According to Economic News, the list of GDP is started by the US with 22.3 trillion dollars (TD) in 2020, China with 15.7 TD but with a growth rate more than the US (Fig. 1). In 3rd position, we have Japan with 5.4 TD (7).

Fig. 1:

Economic Growth Rate of the first 3 countries in the last 220 years. Reference: gapminder.org

We are highly concerned about the devastating effects of the SARS-CoV-2 on the Chinese economy. Which country will benefit from China’s economic downturn? The next question will be whether the Chinese economy will be damaged in this crisis or will it become SARS in time? Most analyzes to date have focused on China’s biological weapons and have been rejected, naive. However, more importantly, there are two more likely situations: Entry of biological agents with the intent to commit terrorist acts in China. Taking the biological agent out by an external spy from WIV. Certainly, both scenarios are aimed at destroying China economically, but whether these will happen or we have the third one will be clear in the future.

The basic questions remain: May the virus have used for China’s economic ends? Does China use the virus thread to an opportunity to push its economy up? And at the End: Could SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 be a BW?