Spare a thought for the diplomats of Switzerland currently posted in China. Instead of going about their duties of representing their country, they spent most of this week feverishly searching for the whereabouts of one of their citizens.

Nor is Mr Wilson Edwards, the person in question, just an ordinary individual. For he is a distinguished biologist, who rose to fame after he wrote on social media about his dismay at how, instead of sticking to science, the international search for the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has been transformed into a political blame game.