(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Zhongxin Times Commentary: Let us review the history of war with viruses

　　China News Service, Beijing, May 2 Question: Let us review the history of war with viruses

　　China News Agency reporter Diao Haiyang

　　The World Health Organization said on May 1 that it was determined that the new coronavirus originated from nature. This scientific determination broke the "new crown virus man-made theory" that some politicians in the United States created and disseminated. At the same time, a series of research results released by multinational scientific research institutions are also smashing various "conspiracy theories" one by one.

　　According to the latest statistics from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in the world has exceeded 3.34 million cases, with a total of more than 230,000 deaths. The current number of confirmed cases in the United States with the most severe epidemic has exceeded one million ... In the face of the crisis of human survival, American politicians not only arbitrarily spread various "conspiracy theories", but also recently instigated the "China compensation theory" internationally, completely ignoring the historical facts of science and the struggle between humans and viruses.

　　Looking back on human history, large-scale outbreaks have occurred from time to time. The Black Death, "Spain's Influenza" and the Ebola epidemic have all become human memory.

　　In the spring of 1918, the "Spanish flu" infected nearly one-third of the world's population at that time, killing tens of millions of people. In the end, humans bid farewell to this disaster with a brutal "group immunity". Although the incident occurred a hundred years ago, research on the epidemic has never stopped. However, as of now, there are only a few hypotheses about the source of this epidemic, and no definitive conclusion has yet been reached.

　　Compared with the inability to verify the source of the "Spanish influenza", the HIV tracing work has shown another picture-the source has moved forward again and again. Researchers in the United States first discovered the virus in 1981, and discovered the virus when a tissue sample left by a patient in 1968 (15 years old) was tested in 1988. In 1998, scientists found a blood sample collected in 1959 in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and confirmed that it contained HIV. This is the earliest AIDS patient "No. 0" that can be traced back to now. So, will the first record of human infection with HIV be rewritten? No one can give a definite answer.

　　As difficult as identifying the source is the problem of identifying the identity of the virus. Some viruses continue to mutate during the transmission process, repeatedly "visiting" human society, which makes the identification of the "starting point of the epidemic" almost a difficult task.

　　The outbreak of H1N1 flu in 2009 spread to 214 countries and regions around the world in more than a year, killing at least 18,000 people. Researchers generally believe that the flu started in Mexico in March of that year, but a large-scale outbreak occurred in the United States. In June of that year, WHO declared that the epidemic had entered a global pandemic, and the United States did not declare a national emergency until October of that year. In August 2010, the World Health Organization declared the end of the pandemic, but the virus has not disappeared since then. Instead, it regularly "returns" to remind people that the virus is still mutating and causing harm.

　　As another example, since the Ebola virus first appeared in southern Sudan and the Ebola River region of Zaire (the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1976, it has continued to become a nightmare for African people. The organization twice declared the Ebola outbreak as an "emergency public health incident of international concern" in 2014 and 2018. Just last month, there was another case of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which means that this round of epidemic, which lasted for nearly two years from May 2018, has not been completely ended.

　　Looking back at history is to see the present clearly. The current situation of the New Crown epidemic, the "China compensation theory" proposed by some people in the United States and the West is basically a political farce. Explaining the epidemic situation, preventing and controlling the epidemic situation is entirely a scientific issue. What's more, from the currently known clues, it is still not clear that China is the first outbreak country of the new crown epidemic. Scientifically speaking, China is only the first country to report the outbreak to the WHO. There is still a long way to go to find the source of the virus in the New Crown Epidemic. If we make the nonsense such as "recovery claims" occupy the energy of all countries and create resistance for the unity and cooperation of all countries, humanity will only be led astray. (Finish)