As multiple evidence has surfaced that the novel coronavirus existed in other parts of the world long before the outbreak, there has been a worldwide call for an investigation into Fort Detrick in connection with the pandemic, said Mauro Gia Samonte in his column published on the Manila Times on Aug 8.

The author quoted part of the article by Herman Tiu Laurel as saying that a "strange flu" in other countries and mysterious issues such as the "vaping deaths" emanating from the US had been present around the middle of 2019. "Those reports (emerging) from the US (revolved) around Fort Detrick, which had been ordered by the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to shut down for 'national security reasons' in August 2019."

Belleville Mayor Michael Melham admitted that he tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies months after a severe November 2019 flu-like illness. The former CDC chief Robert Redfield said in March 2020 that some flu deaths were posthumously discovered to be COVID-19 deaths.

Laurel gave some explanations as to why there always seems to be a clampdown on Fort Detrick's probable role in the worldwide spread of coronavirus. The first is because of its history and the nature of its mission.

Laurel said Fort Detrick had been "associated with the infamous World War II Japanese germ-warfare Unit 731, obtaining biological information in exchange for leniency to Japanese biowarfare war criminals."

It was also linked with "mind-control drug experiments with LSD in the secret MK Ultra program, anthrax virus leaks, Ebola and smallpox experiments, and then the 2019 shutdown."?Fort Detrick "is too dangerous a mystery to remain shrouded in secrecy," he said. "This would open the door to hundreds of other US biolabs, including 200 in other countries and regions. "

Five kilometers out of Fort Detrick at a seniors' home in Greenspring Village, five seniors died after an outbreak of respiratory illness in the summer of 2019, which deepened the mystery.

According to Laurel, all these circumstances and questions arising from them make it imperative that the next focus of the virus origin-tracing investigation be done at Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, the United States of America.

Laurel has been supported in his perception of Fort Detrick in the COVID-19 pandemic by a number of experts. Dr. Peter Ben Embarek of the WHO called it highly unlikely that the pathogen that has now claimed 2.3 million lives worldwide originated in Wuhan, China. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in fact, has stated that the world owes it to China for its prompt action in containing the contagion in its confines; China was free of the virus after more or less three months of lockdowns.

The article pointed out that it is impossible that "a nation which was supposedly the origin of the pathogen could have proceeded to have it spread worldwide and at the same time stopped its spread in its limited confines."

Despite of all of America's blame-shifting, China insisted on cooperating with the WHO's efforts in combating the pandemic. "Certainly graver consequences could have befallen the world had not China done so", the article concluded.