The good, the bad and the ugly — sustainability, trust and coronavirus

23 min readFeb 18, 2020

photo by: Emilio del Prado, source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/emiliodelprado/977706990

This is a continuation of the previous article that can be found here https://medium.com/@Hibryda/sustainability-and-trust-7e340e151600.

The current coronavirus pandemic doesn’t fit precisely in the definition of the black swan event as defined by Nassim Taleb. Yet, even if it’s only a gray swan event it still prominently shows how unprepared humans are when confronted with situations that differ from ordinary ones.

The reason why it’s gray not black swan is because to be the former it must be something really unexpected, unprecedented. The outbreak the world must deal with now is certainly not unprecedented as there were many pandemics that crippled world population in rather regular intervals. Hence, such event should be expected and actually was — for instance, quite recently Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security organized an event centered around working out methods to deal with very similar theoretical pandemic (http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about).

Thus, given epidemiologists know that such outbreaks must occur sooner or later and are preparing responses and tools to mitigate their impact, the global population can remain relaxed and stay assured that everything is under control, right?

So, not quite.

Before however explaining why not, let’s examine the current state of matters and whether they are serious or not.

Will use below the nomenclature devised by WHO. So, SARS-Cov-2 is the main actor of the outbreak, COVID-19 is the disease caused by that virus. SARS-Cov (without number 2) is the less potent cousin that caused an epidemic in 2003/4.

Not a flu

First of all, while influenza viruses are RNA viruses, so are Ebola, measles, polio, hepatitis, coronaviruses, etc. Besides that, similarities between SARS species (to which SARS-Cov-2 belongs) and flu aren’t big. They differ in structure, infection vectors, symptoms, course of disease.
People claiming that it’s just a flu are either ignorants, or are in permanent need of pacifiers, or have a business in China.

That’s not all though. WHO estimates that every year seasonal influenza infection waves result in severe health problems in 3 to 5 million people with a death toll between 290 and 650 thousand (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)). Taking into consideration this paper: https://www.scielosp.org/article/bwho/2012.v90n4/279-288B/pt/ and casting an average mortality on the whole Chinese population yields 210 thousand deaths yearly from influenza viruses alone in China. Naive calculation, it must be less, as otherwise that would mean that China has a very big problem with flu, far bigger than the rest of the world (compare that number to WHO data), which rather isn’t the case even given their horrible air pollution. I bet it’s about 100 thousand — that would fit into the upper limit of WHO’s assessment with Chinese population number taken into account.
The above alone should ring a bell that there must be a difference, as I don’t recall any nationwide quarantine every year in flu season, neither in China, nor in any other part of the world. Certainly not because of 1700+ people dead in a period of month. For comparison, according to US CDC, 80 thousand people died of flu in 2018 in US.

Hence, the scale of reaction suggests that something must be wrong with the reported data versus reality, as otherwise either the top tier of Chinese government lost mind and started panicking over nearly harmless disease, or the official data is fake, and they perfectly know what they are doing.

Not a surprise here. There’s an old proverb saying that to tell if a politician is lying, it’s enough to watch if their lips are moving. Controlling a narrative is a sport that governments and media enjoy the most, usually working in tandem. China isn’t an exception, they maybe lie a little more than some more democratic governments, as they don’t have to care about accountability — it’s easier when you can just disappear those that are too curious.

The question is — how fake? While I cannot give a definitive answer, we can try to roughly estimate that. There are many clues that can help here, let’s examine four. Recently, a journalist, pretending to be an official wanting to investigate current situation, called funeral homes in Wuhan equipped with cremation furnaces (full story: https://www.ntd.com/amid-virus-outbreak-funeral-home-officials-in-wuhan-reveal-sharp-increase-in-cremations_433299.html). There are 7 in that city. All interviewed reported similar overload forcing them to work practically 24/7. From this paper: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7163-9 we have crude mortality rate in China equal to 658.5 per 100000 people per year (for 2016, rather similar now). Adjusting that to Wuhan city, in normal conditions, every day, an average 198.3 persons should die there given 11 million population. One of interviewed reported that they have to cremate 4 to 5 times the number of bodies daily compared to usual number before the epidemic. Taking that 4 times we get ~595 surplus bodies to cremate daily. The interview was performed on 4th of February, but the interviewed worker referred to data from the day before. The data published for whole Hubei province (including Wuhan) for the 3rd of February gave 64 deaths registered. That gives us ~9.3 multiplier of underreporting.

All that while not taking into consideration that according to this article https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047720/chinese-premier-li-keqiang-head-coronavirus-crisis-team-outbreak?utm_source=wnd&utm_medium=wnd&utm_campaign=syndicated the mayor of Wuhan said that 5 million of inhabitants left the city before the quarantine started to visit relatives (Chinese reputation system gives points for taking care about elderly, visiting families and such, we love reputation scoring so much, aren’t we?) or simply fled due to the epidemic.

Given that we can adjust our fakery scoring — now we jump over ten to 10.7. Progress doesn’t have to end here. First, the data for Wubei (province) covers also other cities besides Wuhan. Second, they might cremate bodies in open pits as well. There are no proofs for that (pictures that circled around are fake), but such practices could be both reasonable and expected with high number of dead. Third and last — only 38% of bodies were transported from hospitals, the rest was collected from homes. Some people could’ve lived in separate buildings; it’s cold so decomposition takes longer and death can remain unnoticed; in other cases people living in large apartment buildings can refrain from reporting stench to not to risk to be precautionary weld shut (door of apartments and even whole buildings with those suspected to be infected are often physically blocked by welding or other means). Lastly, many years in prison for spreading “rumors” about the perfectly contained epidemic looks fishy.

Hence, the fakery multiplier can be far larger than said 10.7. It can be anything, but it’s impossible to say without real data.

Even if the journalists report is false there is a far better documented event — the quarantine of the ship Diamond Princess in Japan. While China can censor what is going on inside, can ask for friendly help in controlling narrative those who excel in it — tech giants and media, the situation onboard that ship cannot be easily masked.

After 28 days only from the patient 0 embarking, the number of infected rose to ~12 percent of total number onboard (454). With only approximately half tested. A part of those tested is asymptomatic, meaning that they have no fever or other symptoms, yet they are infected. In last batch of tests around 1/3 showed no symptoms according to Japanese authorities.
The environment is contained, so cross infections can occur, though the same applies to cities, factories, larger accumulations of individuals like quarantine centers, even if less frequently. That in turn suggests that the official data provided by Chinese authorities is altered to hide the real progress of the epidemic, as it’s hard to imagine that 24 million Shanghai, that is currently under lockdown, has less confirmed cases than a ship with 2700 souls aboard.

Another clue indicating alterations (or outward fakery) — there were several phases in official data publishing that indicate that Chinese authorities did everything except reliable reporting. This tweet illustrates that phenomenon better that I’d describe: https://twitter.com/evdefender/status/1228496622079926272 .

The last clue worth mentioning is what respected specialists say recently here and there. I enjoy British style — it’s always somehow sarcastic, even if it wasn’t intended. Professor Neil Ferguson (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8005931/British-scientist-leading-coronavirus-fight-says-forecasts-400-000-UK-deaths.html — the source maybe not ideal, but none is recently, besides there is a video there with an interview) said that potentially 60% of adult population can be infected and that 400 thousand dead in UK alone isn’t absurd. That “isn’t absurd” is so precious… Sir, we are surrounded by murderous cannibals, more tea maybe?
He isn’t the only scholar with reasonable background related to the matter proposing high figures.

To sum the above, the official data provided by Chinese authorities has no value, because its purpose, that I’m going to explain further on, isn’t to inform. Inferring from that bull’s manure makes no actual sense. Here we come to the subject of this article, the trust part in particular. There are tons of reports based on official crappy data about how the epidemic progresses. Tons of useless deliberations, yet the public still largely has a picture of a little more serious flu, that happens somewhere far away. Oh, maybe serious more than little, but still a flu like that will certainly be contained soon and electronic garbage they love will flow unobstructed again. That’s because humans prefer a belief that there are some good uncles taking care about them, responsible guys that know what and when to do. That belief is a pacifier, otherwise one would have to test more than a single information source, read some complex things, use some logical rules instead of watching funny cats. It’s far easier to admire how fast a hospital is built, than to ask why it was build, was it reasonable or done just for a show? Maybe totalitarian states like shows and that’s what they are good at? Are they good at managing critical situations? Could history provide analogies…?
The issue is that in some specific circumstances that trust, useful for most of the time, can turn up being deadly. Literally.

The above leads us to sustainability, as defined in the previous part of this article. Meant as a doctrine that specifies its aim as sustaining existence of human species. Forever at best. Does the SARS-Cov-2 have a potential to wipe us out? No. Decimate maybe. The real issue is that with every such turbulence that puts brakes to our development our chances to survive some really serious black swan events diminish, as we won’t be prepared for them coming and won’t be developed enough to deal with them.

Yet, there is maybe a bright side of the whole story, but that requires some geopolitics mixed with basics about viruses.

Bipolarity

There is a mechanism imprinted in our brains, most likely an evolutionary adaptation linked to tribal behaviors, to favor bipolar order. It translates into how we organize everything around, from person to person contacts, through groups, states’ organization, to global politics. “We-Them” dichotomy is a paradigm, the set of underlying ideologies defining separation line is essentially irrelevant.

Whenever there emerges a multipolar structure it’s scheduled to collapse into bipolar, sooner or later. Such multipolar global setup started forming when the stable arrangement — US and allies versus USSR and allies — crumbled and started reorganizing. That process gave chance for smaller players, irrelevant on a global arena so far, to emerge and attempt to become more important or even to take the lead. The new structure, comprised of many actors, was inherently unstable. The situation became very complex due to another factor — globally operating high-tech industries that as newcomers additionally contributed to disorder. Oil industries and banking sector, also global and powerful, adapted through years as they evolved with the system they helped to script, and thus played rather a stabilizing role to a certain point in time. But the script written shortly after WWII (a modified version of a previous script dating back to WWI) no longer matched new global arrangement. Of course, by script I mean the financial system strictly bound to power centers and international interactions.

China properly leveraged the chaotic situation and entered as a cheap manufacturing center quickly gaining enough resources to rework lost years of depression. They had a lot to work on and I have full respect to those people. It’s important to note that China had to catch up with a heap of wasted time, as since well before WWI this country experienced a recurring dependency changes that never allowed it to advance technologically. Chinese version of communism and being a part of the Eastern block also thwarted any opportunities to become economically relevant. The situation started changing when the days of communist block were counted (around 1980). China was lucky to have a proper person in charge at that moment — Deng Xiaoping. It’s an interesting person to learn more about, but here it’s enough to say that Deng primarily was neither a fan nor fanatic of literal communism — he was just too intelligent for that. Through years, he managed to steer China into capitalism while still retaining centralization and single-party rule. He effectively made communism only a facade, under which new, capitalistic China still operates. His successors cemented that arrangement turning previously irrelevant country into one of leading, technologically advanced, economies on the planet. Together with securing leading economic role China started building military and political power. The crucial point here was to secure allies — fortunately there were plenty eager to cooperate. Contrary however to what people think, Russia isn’t an ally that China loves. They have conflicting interests when it comes to Asia in particular. So, through history, it was often a forced alliance.
Fortunately, with growing international impact other paths appeared on horizon. European Union for instance. Binding those countries with strong economic ties wasn’t very complex. The same applied to some pariahs, like Iran or Venezuela. But the real counterpart to deal with was always US. It required great care and effort, but slowly US also started being dependent. US is a key, as the scripted economy depends on US dollar. Being able to control it even against US would result in rescripting with yuan as a base. China found in US surprisingly many allies, ranging from media, through universities, tech giants to politicians. Some had to be bought, some just wanted help in achieving their goals. That way China gained considerable influence on its biggest competitor. Could then steer it into confrontation with Russia, which would render those countries occupied by conflict and unable to counter China grabbing the position of the global leader.
But something went wrong and that plan misfired.

All the impact built through three decades became endangered. Tariffs, scrutinizing Chinese companies, cutting off channels of influence — that’s what happened. The strategy of economically binding US backfired, as that mechanism has two sides. It works perfectly as an instrument of political pressure only if the other side is substantially weaker. If the parties are more or less equal, a match begins. China, while superficially powerful, wasn’t well-prepared. Eventually had to affirm losing the first round, but the match continued. Meanwhile, they started to think about further weakening the dollar, something like a plan B. That process would require having influence on the oil market. The main obstacle here was Saudi Arabia and satellites. Steering this country into dollar free accounting could really hit US. Hence, we had Yemen, Soleymani and the infamous rocket. That rocket gave a pretext to send proxy (Iran) to war as blocking Persian Gulf could do the job as well. Surprisingly though, a serious attack on the US base was just ignored.
That would probably continue for years, yet a piece of RNA measuring ~150nm in diameter effectively terminated the exchange of courtesies.

What’s the bright side then? China, for next two years will be unable to keep up in the race to the top. Not only because of the virus. Even if it’s contained in few months, repercussions of the current situation will continue. How serious they will be — time will tell. Prognoses can range from relatively fast return to the race, or falling from it entirely, like at the beginning of XX century.
Regardless however internal matters of China, a new, stable, bipolar order is likely to emerge. That means, that coming time can be rather calm (not counting some revolts and local conflicts).
The above can give humans an opportunity to rethink and reshape global structure. Of course that opportunity will largely be wasted as usual, but maybe some advancement will be made. Current global setup is already so sick, that any change can only make it better. Besides, humans learn. This process takes a lot of time and lives, is terribly inefficient, but advances. Another lesson is just being taught.

Several constatations can be formulated here.
First, humanity plays games of domination, that can be interrupted by a speck of matter that is visible only under electron microscope. That means that we cannot fully (or even sufficiently) control what happens in our bodies and environment, yet pretend to be able and having enough knowledge to control far more complex arrangements. We want to reach the stars, while being still susceptible to countless silly threats. We are curious why other intelligent space civilizations (if they exist) never contacted us. The answer is above — because they are intelligent.
Second, that stems from the previous one, is that the constant struggle we favor (bipolarity, we-them, partisanry, multipolarity) prohibits us from rationally managing the planet we live on. The sole fact that we allowed for having a single manufacturing hub that whole world depends on proves the point. It has nothing to do with having a balanced structure. The same applies to the economy dependent on single currency and administrative decisions, no matter which currency and which administration.
Third, we do not think globally. We aren’t able to organize globally. Apart from viruses that we cannot tackle, we have no tools to control climate, we have no tools to control geological threats, we have no tools to shield us from space borne dangers. Basically we are pathetically helpless. Yet, we focus on internal, local games. Or we focus on one subject, like climate, forgetting about others. And that’s not because it’s important (because it is), but because there are heaps of money that can be gathered in the process. Meanwhile, that little fellow, ~150nm in diameter, reduced world’s pollution more than all organized actions combined. I can draw such conclusion, as China so far is the biggest single polluter of the planet (in terms of CO2, they emitted more than EU and US together, not to mention other pollutants), but due to the country being essentially halted now pollution dropped dramatically. Somehow cannot spot the big manufacturers always so concerned about the climate saying “While we cannot deliver the gizmos we make, we are happy that our factories won’t permanently devastate the environment with X tons of crap, besides those gizmos would end up on a landfill in three years anyway”.
Fourth, as I mentioned before the narrative and fake data that China pushes has a purpose and that purpose isn’t to inform. The current situation in which that country found itself is dire. Already battered by economic war now faces an unexpected enemy that cannot be defeated with tanks, planes or propaganda. But that’s not all. If the situation continues and export is still hampered by epidemic, manufacturers worldwide will find new suppliers. Thus, they must run factories or at least pretend that the situation will soon be contained. Most likely won’t soon, but the longer they keep business from fleeing the bigger the chance that some will remain until a resolution is found. They now must save what can be saved, even for a cost of human lives and misery. Sounds cruel, but the alternative is far more dreadful. With no means to sustain themselves Chinese will revolt. Allies will become enemies. There won’t be any business for years. Plus famine of course. And chaos. Thus, they must lie. It’s always better to lose 5 years of development than 50.
Fifth and last, our little enemy is possibly our own creation. To all that are scared by a mere suggestion of a conspiracy theory — there’s a paper preprint that can be viewed here: https://www.scribd.com/embeds/447056518/content (interestingly, written by authors from South China University in Guangzhou, so certainly passed censorship). To many it can be a surprise that governments actively develop biological weapons. Because it’s unethical, there are treaties. However, the reality is mundane and boils down to said we-them stance. “We” must always have better tools to make “them” suffer. Humans trust that governments they feed don’t do irresponsible things or at least have all bases covered in case of some accidents. That isn’t the first incident with pathogens escaping labs (some occurred in China as well). Yet, if it is a case, it’s so far the most dangerous. Let’s take a closer look at SARS-Cov-2 and see why it’s a fairly good candidate for a weapon and what powers it has.

Dreadful little fellow

We’ll probably never know where the SARS-Cov-2 was first assembled if it not evolved naturally. Conversely, if it evolved we should find an animal host. So far, no such host was identified. While the market in Wuhan was infected, there’s no proof that any animal there was. It wasn’t found in bats, at least there’s no reliable report about that.
There’s then a possibility that it was created artificially. That doesn’t automatically translate into being created as a bioweapon, however given human tendency to find ways to destroy other members of own species it’s hardly unlikely (worth listening: https://twitter.com/news_ntd/status/1229247808512954368).

First, a disclaimer. I’m neither a virologist, nor epidemiologist, I find that subject interesting due to being related to things that I’m proficient in. But if you want an opinion of a specialist — head to Twitter accounts I list at the end of this piece. I present my own observations that can be inaccurate. On the other hand I try to make sure that my findings are based on hard data, academic findings or public, if possible verifiable, information.

Some argue that it can be definitely ruled that the virus evolved naturally. I even found such claims in scientific papers. Unfortunately that cannot be ruled, either in or out. Simply because the set of techniques we use now to manipulate genes is capable to produce sequences that cannot be distinguished from naturally evolved. Unless there would be an intron there in those 30k+ pairs that reads: “Copyright XXX Labs, enjoy”. There isn’t any. Even if there could be, as it’s just a chemically expressed code.

The virus in question seems to be a good candidate for a bioweapon due to several characteristics that differentiates it from its less potent cousin (SARS-Cov that caused an epidemic in 2003).

Let’s list them:
- it’s highly contagious. We can assess that because we have this floating lab — the ship I mentioned before — that enables us to see how efficient the virus is in jumping between people. It can transfer through droplets (small enough droplets can sustain in the air for considerable amounts of time, depending on size) and direct contact with bodily fluids and feces of infected, live on surfaces for 9 days https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext, transfer through eyes. It’s worth noting that the situation on the ship originated from a single infected person, 27 days later the number of infected is at least 454 out of 3700 (not even one third of all people aboard tested).
- it can remain undetected for a period, before onset of symptoms. In last batch of tested people on the ship, one third was asymptomatic. It’s particularly dangerous, as in some cases there’s no early warning that could trigger isolation to prohibit wider spread.
- it can escape detection even if a person is tested consecutively (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-13/what-you-need-to-know-about-shock-45-jump-in-hubei-virus-cases). The practice now is to perform two tests (as far as I could find information about that), yet there still is a chance of positive cases passing screening with negative result.
- it exhibits high variability of the time needed for symptoms to manifest. From this paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v1.full.pdf said onset has median of 3 days, but range from 0 to 24.

On the other hand there can also be similarities between COVID-19 caused by SARS-Cov-2 and disease caused by SARS-Cov from 2003/4. For instance mortality. The cousin ultimately reached almost 10%. Given mechanisms of infection as well as its course are similar it’s possible that also mortality will match. Given the only reliable data can be obtained from the ship, but needs time to provide reliable outcome, it’s hard to tell if the above proposition is true. Ultimate mortality depends also on a level of care for instance, so the situation in Japan and China can substantially differ, as the latter is highly exhausted by the event and likely cannot provide sufficient care for all.

Nevertheless, more professional in this subject guys than me posited that this virus could possibly infect 60% of world’s population. It’s staggering as it would mean that ~4.7 billion can contract the disease and out of that 15–35% (0.7–1.6 billion) will require intensive care. There aren’t enough hospitals to accommodate such numbers, so a lot of infected with severe pneumonia is going to die.
Those predictions would still be enormous if the figure would settle on 10%…

Could that be a case? Maybe. Maybe even less. But first a caveat — I did my best to examine facts.
The cousin, SARS-Cov, sparked an epidemic in China in 2003/4. After infecting 8,098, and killing 774 it was contained and practically disappeared thereafter. No new cases were reported since.
The epidemic never actually spread significantly beyond East Asia. One of reasons could be differences in genetic composition of East Asians in comparison to other populations. Such explanation was proposed: https://www.intechopen.com/books/hla-and-associated-important-diseases/association-between-hla-gene-polymorphism-and-the-genetic-susceptibility-of-sars-infection. That paper suggested also artificial origin of the virus. Yet later, in 2017, this paper: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698, being an effect of titanic work, found natural strains very similar to human SARS-Cov in bats. No identical strain was ever found though, given however high mutation rates it was expected.
Shortly after present SARS-Cov-2 emerged, Chinese scientists published a paper suggesting ethnic susceptibility — https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full. While the sample was ridiculously small, their proposal cannot be easily debunked (as it was attempted) as there are other sources documenting genetic variability between ethnic groups worldwide. These sources: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs233575, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs714205, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs1978124, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs879922, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs2048683, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs1877752 provide clues that the proposal can be valid as genetic variants, positively affecting number of ACE2 receptors that the virus uses to attach to the host’s cell, favor East Asians considerably.
Moreover, it’s well established knowledge that the delta 32 mutation of CCR5 occurs mostly only in people of European descent (thanks to founder mutation that occurred between 700 and 2300BP). The CCR5 co-receptor enables virus to enter the cell. The mutation makes it nonfunctional for that purpose. That matter is well researched thanks to the fact that HIV uses exactly this way. Around 1% of European descent individuals is thus immune to it (homozygous individuals). Heterozygous (having only a single copy) that consist of 10–18% of European descent individuals are less likely to be infected. SARS-Cov-2 might use that mechanism to paralyze immune system, fungal pneumonia was observed in infections by this virus (symptom specific in immunocompromised patients). It was also shown that protease inhibitors used in HIV infections are somehow effective in SARS-Cov-2 as well.

There are further genetic differences that might be important and potentially make East Asians more prone to be infected and have worse outcome. Hence, there is some hope that it won’t spread worldwide and cause enormous damage to the rest of world’s population. Little consolation for Chinese, but I’d prefer that to be true.

So, to answer the question I asked — could SARS-Cov-2 be an effective bioweapon?
No matter whether it’s natural or not, the answer is yes. Effective bioweapon must exhibit certain properties. First, it must be hard to detect. Second, hard to tackle. Quarantines and intensive care consume resources and disable the target. Third, must easily spread. Fourth, should not backfire, so ethnic profiling is beneficial.
Contrary to what many think, it doesn’t have to be particularly deadly. Living, but sick people require time-consuming care, dead only burial.

Last issue here, a side note. If it’s a bioweapon, why it was in the Wuhan lab in the first place? There can be several explanations.
First, an experiment that stemmed from curiosity, curiosity about how to make normal SARS more deadly and infectious. The lab is a military one and army guys have sometimes strange ideas. Grave sites worldwide are full of results of some of them. If so though, it would require a special kind of idiot to order works on a thing most effective against own army.
Second, an experiment as above, but aimed at development of a vaccine or other treatment so SARS-Cov from 2003/4 would not repeat. Possible, yet there are safer ways…
Third, Chinese intelligence that infiltrated labs of other countries that “absolutely don’t work on bioweapons” discovered that they prepare a targeted surprise and stole it to study. Then it somehow escaped.
They certainly stole some samples from Canada. Quite recently, just after SARS-Cov-2 broke out, one professor of Harvard and some Chinese accomplices were arrested on attempt to smuggle out samples as well.
China steals technologies, exactly the same way as other players. To be fair though, monks of Emperor Justinian I stole silkworms first, so Chinese weren’t the ones that started.
Fourth, other world power planted the virus in convenient vicinity of the only BSL-4 lab in China.
If the virus was studied in that lab, then no matter which explanation of the above is true, each one would just further prove that humans are still utterly dumb monkeys.

Summary

Will we be able to manage this situation and get rid of the virus? Ultimately, yes. But most likely that won’t be fast. At the moment strict quarantine and supportive treatments with covalescent plasma and protease inhibitors are the only choices. Chances to develop a vaccine soon are small. It’s going to take time, months at least. There are other candidates for effective treatment, but they have their own drawbacks and require time as well.

Maybe some genetic therapies would make sense provided that the mechanisms based on ethnic differences I described above are valid. Country wide genetic modification wasn’t tried ever before, however maybe it’s a good chance to go that way? The carrier to deliver such mutation is at hand — the virus itself. Modifying ACE2 may be risky. However, CCR5 deletion (delta 32) was already tried on HIV infected patients and could be beneficial. SARS-Cov-2 induces cytokine storms indicating that CCR proteins play important role in infection. That is reasonable, as the virus that stems from the one that evolved in bats must deal with their particularly strong immune system and exploit its deficiencies.

Ultimately, a way to suppress or even eradicate SARS-Cov-2 will be invented. There are however other issues as well.

Economy will suffer. Though, not that much. It’s already broken beyond repair, such event may only fix it temporarily. Manufacturers will finally learn what redundancy means. Some will bankrupt, some will have worse days. Thanks to that, competitors will have an opportunity to appear and in the best scenario break the solidified hierarchy that we have now. Temporary shortage of new cars or electronic gizmos or even steel isn’t something that can change the world.
Yet, two years that come will be slower. Thanks to media that constantly babbled about coming crisis in past years we have such crisis now, a creeping one. Hence, there will be no shock. Central banksters will do their best to use powers of QE to keep friends afloat — with China focused on more serious matters it’s going to be easier. Especially provided that PBoC will have to pump all its reserves out.

What I really care though is sustainability. Recently Tedros Ghebreyesus, the boss at WHO said that we spend a lot of money to fight epidemics, but when it ends we forget about the subject and do nothing to prevent another. Apart from the fact that he did little either, it’s true. I only hope that from now on he will be devoted to what he said more than to shaping the narrative.
Nevertheless, we just lost some time thanks to trusting that there are some good, responsible uncles that certainly care about everything and nothing bad is going to happen. History shows that it never works, those uncles are usually as smart or dumb as an average human. Preparing population for disastrous events that must happen, but nobody knows when, never pays off in popularity ratings. Conversely, we-them games pay well. Always.
Some will say that this lost time is nothing, everything can be rebuilt and returned to previous state. That’s right. The issue is that if one day we face a really serious black swan we could find out that to mediate it we need two more years. Puff, and we’re wiped out.