Thread by @ianbirrell

The @WHO investigation into Sars-CoV-2 claims to have conducted systematic & comprehensive research in its Wuhan probe into the pandemic origins. Note how it is a joint study to appease the Chinese dictatorship that covered up the disease with such devastating global consequences

Chinese expert using @who platform to push debunked idea that the pandemic started outside its borders by stressing that this investigation into the origins is only ‘the first part’, the ‘China part’, and is not limited by geographical location.

Now the Chinese representative is saying cough medicine sales from pharmacies do not indicate early spread of Sars-CoV-2. ‘There is no indication of spread before December 2019.’

Now China is pushing the discredited idea that the virus was imported on frozen or chilled food. Incredible that @who is giving the dictatorship a platform to spread misinformation

BTW Liang Wannian, the Chinese speaker at the
@who press conference, is the man who oversaw their country's response to Covid-19 and has repeatedly defended their 'decisive' approach - so not exactly the most dispassionate person to investigate the pandemic origins

Now @WHO team leader Peter BenEmbarek admits that the virus has erupted a long way away from the home of the bats that were its natural reservoir - but focuses on need to find intermediate species

The @who team continues to push the idea that Huanan market is key to understanding the disease, despite earlier Chinese admission that the virus was circulating elsewhere, and echoes discredited idea that it could have been imported on frozen or chilled products from elsewhere.

'Our initial findings show that an introduction through an intermediary host animal is the most likely and the one that we will target more studies and research,' says @WHO.

Yet it just said there is no evidence for this, who why is it prioritised?

Then the @who team says it is focusing on frozen food to appease the CCP that pushed the idea it was imported into China

'However the findings suggest that a lab incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely and therefore is not a hypotheses for our future work into the origins of the virus.'

Boom. Job done for China

If the @who is making this claim, it needs to release all evidence supporting its promotion of the idea there is zoonotic transmission via an intermediate species and all the evidence ruling out a lab leak in the city that hosts the world's biggest bat coronavirus research centre

.@who keeps pushing China's theory that the virus was imported on frozen food. 'I do not find the data linking Sars-Cov-2 to frozen foods to be credible' - Kristian Andersen, professor of immunology & microbiology at Scripps & leading backer of natural transmission, told the BBC

The virus’s path from the animal to the Huanan market could have been very convoluted and could have crossed borders, adds Embarek helpfully for China.

But a recent study into the progenitor traced it to China dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…

Amazing there is still so much talk about the Huanan market when it was challenged by studies in May (ianbirrell.com/landmark-study…), then later that month the Chinese CDC discounted the idea that it was birthplace of the pandemic.

Worth remembering that the Chinese authorities instantly cleaned up the Huanan market as soon as the @who was told by Taiwan about the new disease, then they refused to share the samples gathered with outsiders

Embarek's incredible reasoning for discounting lab leak idea: the @who inquiry talked to staff, checked their health monitoring, believe such leaks are very rare and looked at Wuhan Institute of Virology to determine that it was 'very unlikely' anything could escape. Embarrassing

Worth pointing out that even the CCP chief, who was head of safety at Wuhan Institute of Virology, admitted in a published scientific paper that they had concerns about security at their own lab while Sars previously infected several people in another top-security Chinese lab

Now Liang Wannian, China's expert, adds that he agrees with @who that the hypothesis a of a lab leak is 'extremely unlikely' on the basis of 'very diligent research'. He claims their security was good & the virus did not exist in any lab. (So why were all WIV databases deleted?)

Incidentally the Chinese spokesman claimed there were no Covid cases before Dec 8th 2019. But as @gdemaneuf points out, their own CDC has shown cases at least three days earlier

The @who says they had a 'frank' discussion with Wuhan Institute of Virology staff & asked about their research. Then had 'a very interesting discussion' on their views and discussed how to do PR to dismiss difficult claims. On that basis, they have decided there was no lab leak!

Let's sign off with a reminder of how the @who - currently carrying out a joint inquiry into the pandemic with one of the most dictatorial regimes in the world - previously assisted China's cover-up with such devastating consequences.