The whole world was jolted with the news when China said the Wuhan lab deserves a Nobel Prize! The Chinese Foreign Ministry recently argued that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) deserves to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for its contribution to the research of the coronavirus that led to many breakthroughs in the past 18 months related to the control of the pandemic.

Wuhan was the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in December 2019. WIV Lab has been at the centre of major controversy and the subject of intense speculation ever since the pandemic broke out. One after the other, several hypotheses have claimed that the lab is the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 disease. International media and some of China’s own virologists have been claiming that China was experimenting with bats to develop bioweapons, which accidentally might have escaped but so far there has been no concrete evidence supporting the claims in absence of Chinese permission for a thorough probe into its origin.

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

Late last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences nominated the Wuhan Institute of Virology for its Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize, specifically naming Shi Zhengli, popularly known as “Bat Woman,” and Yuan Zhiming, Director of the WIV’s Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory. But it deliberately omitted the nomination of Li Wenliang, who had demonstrated significant achievements in the research work for the past five years. Dr Wenliang, the Wuhan ophthalmologist who desperately tried to warn his colleagues about the danger of COVID-19, and was charged with a crime for it and ultimately died of the disease.

Chinese state-run media stated “the award is mainly given to individuals or research groups who have made or demonstrated significant achievements in the past five years. China’s Foreign Ministry stressed that scientists working at the WIV should be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, rather than being blamed for being the first to discover the gene sequence of the novel coronavirus.” It further argued that we must admit, the Institute’s work really has touched all of our lives, hasn’t it? And just think how many medical breakthroughs we’ve seen in the past 18 months from Pfizer and Moderna and Oxford and Johnson & Johnson that never would have occurred if it hadn't been for the earlier work of the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Also read:  China's in-your-face counter punch – Wuhan lab needs Nobel not probe

The fact that the Chinese government insists the WIV deserves celebration is another indicator that it intends to change nothing in the aftermath of the pandemic and it should not be probed to find out the origin of the virus.

Chinese virologist, Dr. Li-Meng Yan who was among the first scientists to claim that the coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan lab. Reacting to China’s demand for the Nobel, she said : “It sounds crazy that China asked for a Nobel Prize nomination for Wuhan Lab. When more and more evidence  is emerging, people are realising that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in Wuhan, and the labs involved in the gain-of-function modification of the virus. However, the nomination clearly shows China’s perspective to the world, which is opposite but perfectly fits Chinese Communist Party’s logic."

And she went on to add, “asking for the nomination not only shows the CCP regime’s ambitions to the world but also proves how inhuman the communist ideology and dictatorship is. Moreover, it tells you clearly that the COVID-19 is NOT caused by a lab accident, but purposely released to destroy the rival countries by the Chinese government".

The work of the Wuhan Institute of Virology literally brought the world to a screeching halt and the pandemic’s impact is still unabated. In a pre-emptive move to neutralise the growing international pressure for a probe into the activities of WIV, China now demands a Nobel award for its lab, bizarrely, with no remorse!