Thread by @R_H_Ebright

"[S]ilencing of scientists,..blanket denials,..careful guarding of..data and..samples—these elements have been emblematic of the approach by Chinese authorities at every stage of..outbreak. And they continue to obstruct..world’s ability to get answers."

washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…

"Tian and..team from...Wuhan CDC are filmed catching..bats and collecting..guano, in search of new bat-borne diseases..'It is while discovering new viruses that we are most at risk of infection,' he says, though he is shown handling..vials without wearing full protective gear."

"The video is perhaps even more notable for what it doesn’t reveal. Nothing is known outside China about the science gleaned from that expedition by the Wuhan CDC..The team has not disclosed what viruses, if any, it found in the cave, or even when the mission took place."

"According to the WHO report, the Wuhan CDC denied any storage or laboratory activities involving bat viruses before the coronavirus outbreak—a stance hard to reconcile with Tian’s boasts in..video about having visited dozens of bat caves and studied 300 types of virus[es]."

"Wuhan’s two rival teams of exotic bat disease specialists are now under renewed scrutiny. Tian’s team at the Wuhan CDC and Shi Zhengli’s at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) have both drawn criticism for a willingness to compromise safety, as they raced to make discoveries."

"The WHO report says Shi told the visiting team that all field work is done with full protective equipment..But in a June 2018 lecture, Shi said workers don’t do that in practice. 'In most cases, we’d wear simpler protection, and it’s okay,' she said on a Chinese TED Talk"

"To illustrate, she showed slides of her team spreading out nets in a cave to catch bats and sorting samples afterward. Some wear thin surgical masks and rubber gloves as they work, while others are unmasked with bare hands."

David Relman: "We can’t even begin to talk about a consensus other than a consensus that we don’t know..Any lab that handles a significant number of samples from bats..or performs engineering on coronaviruses..should be considered"