China's nonsensical study claiming COVID's origin is India called out; CSIR tears it apart

In a bizarre turn of events, Chinese scientists are now arguing that the Coronavirus also called as 'Wuhan virus' by a few including US President Donald Trump, originated in India in July-August 2019 when an unbearable heatwave in May-June that year forced animals and humans to share the same water sources.

Various outlets of the state-run Chinese media have been carrying reports in recent days stating that a number of imported food products from different countries, including a consignment of fish from India, were found to have traces of the COVID-19 alleging that the virus may have entered China through foreign routes. However, this attempt by China has been called out.

'The origin process is a complex scientific issue'

Asked whether that is China's official view too, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing last week that even though China was the first to report Coronavirus but doesn't necessarily mean China is where the virus originated. 

"So we believe the origin process is a complex scientific issue which requires joint efforts on COVID-19 cooperation from the scientific community worldwide. Only by doing so, we can guard against future risks because origin tracing is an evolving and sustained process that involves many countries and regions, he said. His response came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) team to investigate the origin of the virus is due to arrive in China, even though Beijing is yet to give a timeline.

According to a report in Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times, a recent pre-print study, titled the 'Early Cryptic Transmission and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in Human Hosts,' that was about to be published in a medical journal, suggested that the Indian subcontinent might be the place where the earliest human-to-human novel Coronavirus transmission occurred, three or four months prior to the outbreak in Wuhan. This fanciful and likely malicious notion, however, leaves many glaring loopholes particularly to do with the timeline of events. 

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'The study is badly done': CSIR Director

The study was conducted by researchers with the Institute of Neuroscience under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Shanghai-based Fudan University and the University of Texas at Houston.

Responding to this, CSIR Director Dr Shekhar Mande said, "A Chinese paper has been submitted for consideration of publication claiming India as the origin of SARS COV2 virus. It hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet. The study is badly done and won't stand the scrutiny of peer-review as its methodology is faulty." The connection to link India and Bangladesh for the origin of COVID-19 is faulty and have many loopholes, he added. 

The Coronavirus infection is first recorded as having emerged in Wuhan in November last year before turning into a global pandemic with the worldwide death toll crossing over 1.4 million.

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