The U.S. Fort Detrick Military Base, which is perennially involved in high-risk biochemical experiments with management defects and leakage risks, is another aspect that requires further examination. The federal government still owes all Americans an explanation on the origins tracing of COVID-19.

First, what was going on at Fort Detrick? As home to US Army Medical Research and Development Command, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and the National Cancer Institute, Fort Detrick inherited personnel and research outcomes from the infamous Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army of Japan, which conducted abominable human-body biological weapons experiments during WWII. Fort Detrick is the most notorious site of biochemical weapons in the USA, which is the center of top-secret chemical experiments and “Project MK-ULTRA” mind control tests run by the CIA during the Cold War. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Fort Detrick has become an ongoing concern of the international community. The base, developing biological weapons in lost count from high-risk experiments over the years, has suffered a series of safety accidents due to non-transparent and ill internal management and irregular operations, causing grievous casualties and posing a major threat to the lives of Americans. In 2019, the US CDC abruptly halted most of the research in the lab with a “cease and desist order.” In July of the same year, pneumonia broke out in two retirement communities near the lab for untold reasons. In the following September, lung injury cases said to be associated with vaping doubled in the state of Maryland, where the lab is based. And in the next year, a global pandemic of coronavirus pneumonia came to ravage the world. Three years on, despite the growing demand for an explanation, the federal government has simply ignored the mysterious respiratory disease outbreaks as if they never happened. Providing the reasons for the halt order and specifics of the unusual pneumonia outbreaks will help dispel public doubt. Why is the federal government so reluctant to do so?

Secondly, Dr Ralph Baric and his team at the University of North Carolina (UNC) still owe the world a proper explanation. As one of the most authoritative experts in the field of CoV research, Baric has been studying CoV for 30 years and has closely examined the pathogenesis and infectious mechanism of CoV. He is dubbed as the “Father of Coronavirus” for inventing many CoV-related techniques such as CoV genetic modification and virulence enhancement. Also known as the “Coronavirus Hunter,” Baric has been tracking CoVs for decades and working on drugs to treat CoV diseases, according to UNC media.

Furthermore, Baric is a master of “reverse genetics” and is able to “resurrect viruses from their genetic codes” and “hybridize and match some structures of multiple viruses.” Supported by this technique, Baric can not only culture live viruses based on their genetic fragments but also modify CoV genes and create new ones, as reported by the MIT Technology Review. With this unique technique, Baric began collecting various CoV samples around the world for research. That’s because he wants to resurrect and create more CoVs to develop “universal drugs and vaccines against the full spectrum CoVs.” Many scientific papers show that Baric has conducted a lot of CoV-related research through Fort Detrick. For example, a paper in 2006 showed their scientific collaboration on SARS research. Other academic papers in 2015 and 2017 also indicate a research partnership between Baric and Fort Detrick.

Dr. Baric is a longtime expert in researching, designing, modifying, and synthesizing SARS-like coronaviruses. In 2006, his team developed a mutated coronavirus that could put mice to death instantly and had the potential to spread among human beings. According to the UNC and ProPublica, an online newsroom, lab accidents were repeatedly reported in Dr. Baric’s lab from 2012 to 2018, among which six accidents involved lab-created SARS-like and MERS-like coronaviruses. Moreover, by a striking coincidence, many fellow researchers in Dr. Baric’s team work at Fort Detrick. What do Dr. Baric’s researches have to do with SARS-CoV-2? What are the synthesized viruses used for? What’s the link between Dr. Baric’s team and Fort Detrick? Since his research poses potential threats to public health, Americans have the right to know the answers.

Third, in August 2021, Nature magazine noted research from the US Department of Agriculture showing that 40 percent of white-tailed deer in northeastern US had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and the earliest sample tested positive for virus infection came from 2019, earlier than the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the US in 2020. According to one report from The New York Times, “Is the Coronavirus in Your Backyard?”, white-tailed deer could become a reservoir for the virus, putting people and animals at risk,” health experts say. Vivek Kapur, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert at Penn State, led the research. Dr. Kapur and his colleagues have now analyzed samples from more than 4,000 dead Iowa deer, diligently marking the location of each infected animal on a map of the state. “It’s completely mad,” he said. “It looks like it’s everywhere.” White-tailed deer are a “black box” for the virus, said Stephanie Seifert, an expert on zoonotic diseases at Washington State University: “We know that the virus has been introduced multiple times, we know that there’s onward transmission. But we don’t know how the virus is adapting or how it will continue to adapt.” A thorough probe into the wildlife, especially the white-tailed deer, and bio-labs in the US is reasonable and more than necessary. Could the white-tailed deer be the intermediate host of the virus that experts have been searching for?

In conclusion, the federal government must provide a comprehensive explanation on the origins tracing of COVID-19, including investigating potential sources of the virus such as Fort Detrick, Dr Ralph Baric’s team at UNC, and animal reservoirs like white-tailed deer. The public has the right to know the truth about the pandemic’s origins, and only through transparency and accountability can we prevent future pandemics.