Virologist Pyotr Chumakov: "The issue of coronavirus leakage from the laboratory has become political"

Irina Mishina

- Pyotr Mikhailovich, The Wall Street Journal newspaper, citing the US Department of Energy, reports that the coronavirus began to spread in the world due to an incident in a Chinese laboratory.

The FBI agrees with this assessment. At one time, the World Health Organization conducted its own investigation. It is known that WHO experts arrived in Wuhan in January 2021, visited the seafood market and the Institute of Virology, where they met with the head of the laboratory that studied bat coronaviruses. Virologists then, I remember, rejected the possibility of leakage. What new data could appear now?- If you want my opinion, I am inclined to the artificial, laboratory origin of the coronavirus, but I have great doubts that its leakage occurred in China.

The Americans' task today is to turn the issue into a political plane. But after all, there are other laboratories in the world besides Wuhan. The Chinese themselves did not rule out the possibility of a virus leak, but called on WHO to check other laboratories, primarily American ones. It is known that in addition to the Wuhan Institute, scientific experiments to enhance the functions of coronaviruses are carried out in the laboratory of Galveston, Texas, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

- Why are you leaning towards the version of a virus leak from the laboratory?- The increase in morbidity was explosive.

To humans, this virus could be transmitted from a bat through an intermediate host. They searched for him for a very long time, but they never found him. It should also be borne in mind that no one has yet been able to prove the natural origin of the coronavirus.

- Why do you rule out a virus leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan?- In December 2019, one case of coronavirus was detected near the Wuhan laboratory, not far from the seafood market.

Why did no one allow such an option: someone got infected and went to the market? Or did someone put this virus on purpose? The Wuhan Institute is equipped with a top level of security. In this laboratory, however, an unpleasant incident occurred: the virus database was deleted. But, on the other hand, someone could have taken out this virus and specifically deleted the database. There could have been a deliberate removal of the virus, I do not allow leakage.

- Who do you suspect of this? Surely there are some thoughts?Everything that happened looks like a conspiracy theory or a sinister adventure.

The Americans shout the most about the laboratory origin and leakage of the coronavirus from the laboratory. If you're asking about handwriting, it's more like the English. After all, there are biological laboratories working with viruses all over the world, and here we need to look for a beneficiary. According to official data, at least 7 million people have died in the world during the pandemic, much has changed. As a result of the pandemic, markets for goods have been transformed in the world, transport schemes have changed. On the eve of the economic crisis that has erupted, it is advantageous to blame everything on objective factors like a pandemic so that specific governments in specific countries do not bear responsibility. The pharmaceutical industry has received huge benefits from the pandemic. What are at least vaccinations worth, which were considered for a long time to be a way of survival in a pandemic! I think we should look not for the country that allowed all this, but for elite groups. They could have allowed the laboratory origin of the virus and its launch into the population in one form or another.

- How to prevent a repeat of the pandemic? After all, virological laboratories are scattered all over the world. Could the virus leak scenario happen again somewhere else?American biolabs are really scattered all over the world.

They are coordinated by the Biological Weapons Development Control Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There are the US Army Medical Research and Development Command, the Biological Defense Agency and the Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, which studies deadly pathogens. In August 2019, the Center was closed due to serious safety violations, but in April 2020, it resumed work.

- I remember, then the Democratic senator from Maryland even congratulated the staff "on the current outbreak of COVID-19"… In general, the way Americans behave in this situation brings to mind the saying: "A thief's hat is on fire."

- The Covid stopped as suddenly as it started. You have expressed thoughts that the pandemic could also have been stopped artificially…    The Omkron strain could indeed have been launched on purpose.

He could have been artificially selected, this is evidenced by the strangeness and suddenness of his appearance. I would call Omicron a live vaccine that will put an end to the pandemic. This strain spreads rapidly, evades immunity, therefore infects both unvaccinated and vaccinated, but does not cause serious illness.  Perhaps someone wanted to stop this pandemic. I can responsibly say that by seriously doing this, it is possible to create a semblance of a live vaccine against covid. But no one will miss such a vaccine, even if the tests show safety. But it is quite possible to release such a virus unnoticed, and it will work as a "counter fire", sweeping away pathogenic variants on the way.