This seems an apt moment to consider biological weapons as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage the globe and the United States faces a record number of infections. The virus is known to have originated in Wuhan, China and some have advanced the – unsubstantiated and unproven – conspiracy theory that it was actually released as a deliberate act of bioterrorism by the Chinese government.
This Forbes piece examines whether the Covid-19 virus makes a “good” bioweapon from the perspective of medical and biodefense experts. It explains that an effective bioweapon is easy to access and manufacture; it is stable in the atmosphere; it is highly contagious; it makes a high number of infected people ill, and it causes mass panic. Also, users of the bioweapon have protections against it.
While Covid-19 spreads very quickly and widely – and it has certainly generated panic – it does not hold up as a bioweapon by other key measures. For one thing, it is not very stable in the atmosphere and does not survive very well outdoors or in sunlight, allowing for activities like distanced gatherings and outdoor dining. Covid-19 also fails the test for a “good” bioweapon given that there were no known protections for users of Covid-19 as a bioweapon at the time it emerged. Though several countries say they are on the brink of approving and disseminating a vaccine – and Russia claimed to have one as of late summer – there was no known vaccine or antidote back in late 2019/early 2020, making it fairly implausible that the virus was deliberately released as a bioweapon.
The article concludes that, while Covid-19 “has some desirable properties of a bioweapon, it would probably not be good choice for military purposes.” Nonetheless, the pandemic has reminded us of our extreme vulnerability and how unpredictable the results of a public health crisis can be. The ease with which such crises can spin out of control is part of the reason the U.S. stopped its biological warfare program in 1969 and focused its efforts on prevention. The disaster that has been the United States’ Covid-19 response is an obvious argument for greater investment in defensive capabilities against killer pathogens, no matter their origin.
Shana,
An interesting and provocative topic for a blog post! Yes, I’ve heard this conspiracy allegation as well, as well as the variant that it may have been released inadvertently from the biolab in Wuhan. Both variants on the allegation have been pretty much disproven–and especially that it was a purposeful release as a bioweapon. I think the bioweapon argument is largely contradicted by the number of Chinese who contracted and died from the illness, before it spread abroad. The Chinese can justifiably be accused of many things (e.g., what they are currently doing to the Uighurs), but using their own citizens as a way to propagate a bioweapon is almost certainly not one of them!
–Professor Wallerstein