THE World Health Organization (WHO) has dismissed conspiracy theories about Covid-19 by asserting that all available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus in a lab or somewhere else. The comment made by WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib on Tuesday came days after US President Donald Trump said the US was trying to determine whether the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
The findings of the UN organization should serve as an eye-opener for all those who have been either accusing China of any lapse or linking the spread of the virus to biological warfare. Such accusations and rumours are detrimental to the global unity and cohesion needed to fight the invisible enemy that has taken heavy tolls in most of the countries of the world. Similarly, there is now another clarity that the virus can only be eliminated if its transmission is stopped and this has effectively been proved both by China and the New Zealand. Following the footsteps of China, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken bold steps, putting the country under a strict lockdown in late March, when only about 100 people had tested positive for the new virus with a motto: “Go hard and go early.” The strategy is working as new cases have dwindled from a peak of about 90 per day in early April to just five on Tuesday. As against this, confusion and half-measures have hampered response in many countries and there is also now a fresh warning from WHO that if restrictions were to be relaxed too soon, there would be a resurgence of infections. All governments must heed to its advice that lockdown measures have proved effective and people must be ready for a new way of living to allow society to function while the Coronavirus is being kept in check.
