Overall, I really like this piece. I’d appreciate more reporting on efforts to identify the natural reservoir, since that will tell us so much, and not treat a lab escape as the main hypothesis to test. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
I think the context of ongoing searches for the wild reservoirs would change some interpretation of comments by Francis Collins, for instance. As it stands, he is presented as nigh accusatory. But China’s secrecy burdens any and all aspects of the search, not just lab inquiries.
Did he intend to point a finger so much at WIV? Or was he simply saying the Chinese government needs to allow international cooperation and visibility into the fieldwork and other aspects of this investigation as well as the lab end? I’m guessing the latter.
Also interesting not to see Ford’s account given more air, or any reporting on his questions about whether Pompeo had Yu circumvent the scientific reviewers. That’s a key part of the story that I want more reporting on!
Nor does the piece highlight just how out there some of the theories inside the State Department got. Not just the shot-down bioweapons claims, but the idea of COVID as a genetically-selective infectious agent. That contextualizes how loony and dangerous that operation got.
So I think there’s still a lot of reporting to do on the State process, but the piece advances our understanding in big ways. And I think a naïve reader will get a good sense of where the debate is, but one that may overweight on lab origins, by word count if not credence.
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