Coronavirus: China Still Keeping Citizens In The Dark About COVID-19 And Its Origins

Amid the pandemic scare, there’s another niggling worry in the minds of the Chinese—of being kept in the dark about the growth of COVID-19. As per a recent report, the Chinese government is making strenuous efforts to filter out content—related to the novel coronavirus— that’s being put out for public dissemination.

At present, scientists have been asked to run their research for approval by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The big reveal was discovered on a since-deleted University page. Despite the COVID-19 spread having been traced back to the seafood market in Wuhan, where communist authorities alleged that the virus originated from intermediate horseshoe bats, the real origin of the virus hasn’t yet been fully established.

But, a now censored research paper proved otherwise—the origin of the virus is likely to have accidentally erupted from a bio lab and not from the market, as there are reportedly no known colonies of this species of the bat within a radius of 90 kms of Wuhan. Just for the record, this isn’t the first-time accusations have been levied against China for its muddled approach in revealing the accurate depiction of the global health crisis.

For instance, not too long ago, reports about local Chinese officials concealing the accurate representation of information in Wuhan soon after the initial outbreak surfaced. The detention of whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang, followed by his sudden death from COVID-19 raised eyebrows. In February, The New York Times revealed an explosive report that saw the Chinese venting about the lack of access to the accurate state of affairs.

While it is yet to be known as to why China continues to be apprehensive about being transparent, it is now clear that the government no longer believes in getting the masses to disclose details—from censoring keywords related to the coronavirus as well as erasing criticism of the government, the Chinese social media has really thick filters on, at present.

Currently, the pandemic which has claimed over 109,000 lives so far, continues to spread across continents. The United States is currently the epicenter for the virus with over 5,30,000 cases having been recorded.