It’s time to get real about Covid-19 and China

The ‘lab leak’ theory of the origin of the pandemic was long dismissed as a conspiracy – but there may be much more to it, writes Michael Sheridan

With a whistleblower absent, we may never get the full truth (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

It’s time to face facts about Covid-19, the lab leak blame game and real life in China. If we don’t, there is a risk that the world will stumble out of the plague years and into decades of a hot-cold conflict.

First: this was a disaster foretold. China’s markets were a virologist’s nightmare. Laboratory conditions were often basic. In a hard society, people will take risks. Bad stuff happens, the regime clamps down and covers up. It moves on.

But after 20 million deaths – that’s according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) – some politicians want to put a price on the ruin. Among them, of course, is the former US president Donald Trump. He tells his followers he will get 60 trillion dollars in reparations from China (presumably to pay for his wall out of the loose change). It’s hard to think of a more provocative idea.