My TakeTruth is the first casualty of a pandemic

Despite the WHO’s valiant efforts, it’s difficult if not impossible to find out what really happened with Covid-19 once narratives about its origin and spread have been weaponised in a (dis)information war between the superpowers

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A member of the World Health Organization team during a field visit to the Hubei Animal Disease Control and Prevention Center in Wuhan. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 4 Apr 2021Updated: 9:00pm, 4 Apr 2021

In A Civil Action, a Hollywood movie based on a non-fiction book of the same name that is recommended reading at many American law schools, a brilliant if cynical defence lawyer played memorably by Robert Duvall said: “As soon as [we] walk into the courtroom, the truth goes out of the window.”

The same may be said about politics. That’s why we will not know for a long time, if ever, the truth about the origin and spread of the coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.

The long-awaited World Health Organization report has, predictably, ended up pleasing no one. There are no conclusions on when the virus first started spreading among people; whether the virus originated from China or elsewhere; what animals spread the virus to humans and whether they were sold in food markets or were illegally traded.

Any independent findings, such as those published in the 300-plus-page report, are bound to displease one side, the other or both. Those who are dissatisfied will always find other theories, claims and “evidence” to cast doubt on those findings they don’t like or consider inconvenient.

If by truth we mean consensus, then it’s unlikely we will ever settle those basic questions definitively. This is especially so in an era of post-truth and fake news, where anyone can launch and build up a platform to spread their views or to group with others to promote a creed or a viewpoint.