No, this is not a headline from our favorite satire site, The Babylon Bee: The Chinese Communist government brazenly claims that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — the same lab most likely responsible for unleashing the global coronavirus pandemic — deserves to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

According to China’s state-run media:

The award is mainly given to individuals or research groups who have made or demonstrated significant achievements in the past five years. … China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson stressed at Thursday’s press conference that scientists working at the WIV should be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, rather than being blamed for being the first to discover the gene sequence of the novel coronavirus.

Why not the Nobel Peace Prize for killing at least 3.8 million people by lying about the virus in the early days when it could have been contained?

In its appeal, Beijing highlights the work of Shi Zhengli, famously (or infamously) nicknamed the “Bat Woman” due to her study of bat coronaviruses, as well as the director of the WIV biosafety lab, Yuan Zhiming. Shi recently claimed that “bat viruses in China could be studied in BSL-2 labs because there was no evidence that they directly infected humans.” For context, BSL-2 labs work with what are considered moderately dangerous viruses like hepatitis or HIV, whereas BSL-4 labs are the highest level of control and containment for those viruses considered most dangerous and contagious, such as ebola.

Political analyst Jim Geraghty observes:

Shi’s argument wants it both ways. Part of the argument in support of the zoonotic theory of SARS-CoV-2’s origins is that new viruses jump from animals to people all the time, and thus that is what most likely happened in this case. … [At the same time], it’s extremely unusual for bat viruses to infect human beings — which makes SARS-CoV-2 extremely different from most viruses found in horseshoe bats, suggesting something about the virus may have changed or been altered to make it more contagious among human beings. Or another option is that it isn’t so rare for bat viruses to infect human beings, which would suggest that these viruses shouldn’t be studied in BSL-2 laboratories. Pick one.

In other words, Shi’s assessment of the nature and danger of coronaviruses is a transparent attempt to deflect away from the growing international consensus for the origin of COVID being a leak from the Wuhan lab, and thus the accompanying blame put on the ChiCom regime.

Speaking of the lab leak theory, part of the explanation for the sudden about-face taken by both the Biden administration and mainstream media over COVID’s origins — going from calling it a fringe conspiracy theory to now entertaining it as the most plausible source — may have to do with a rumored defection of a top Chinese official. It’s being reported that China’s number two official in charge of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), Dong Jingwei, weeks ago defected to the U.S. and brought with him valuable information exposing Beijing’s knowledge of COVID’s origins.

Regardless, the deadly truth is that the ChiComs lied big and are now aiming to shore up the lie by boldly demanding a prize for it.