“After inspection of the WIV biosafety laboratory, the WHO–China joint expert group also concluded that the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 through a laboratory incident was “extremely unlikely””
“as mentioned in the phase 1 joint report of the WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2, internal audit is a better alternative for all high-level biosafety laboratories worldwide to further exclude the “laboratory incident” hypothesis.”
“SARS-CoV-2 could plausibly spread across regions through cold-chain transmission and raise questions as to whether the location in which the virus was first reported was necessarily the site of its origin”
“retrospective sampling and testing should be performed to trace the origin of cold-chain imports”
“Chinese scientists and medical workers have always kept an open and cooperative attitude, working vigorously with the international scientific community in all aspects and offering unreserved accurate data”
“… immediately shared the whole genome sequence of the virus with the rest of the world”
I’m sure the bravest people were the scientists, doctors, journalists and sleuths in China who risked and gave their lives to share important information about the virus with their communities and the world.
@TheLancet is doing these true heroes a disservice with this letter.
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Wish the @CNN@drsanjaygupta special was longer. Must have so much more valuable footage from each of the interviewees. Q&A with @PeterDaszak and Dr Ralph Baric was 👌 Thank you for having me on the show ☄️producer and team!
Take home messages were:
1. No definitive evidence for natural or lab origin - jury still out
2. No actual investigation of lab origin yet
3. Extensive SARS-related virus work done at low biosafety levels
4. Large pathogen database MIA
5. But natural origins still possible
Ancestral bat origin most likely according to most experts and WHO.
Problem is we don’t know how a bat virus evolved and transformed into the SARS2 virus that was detected in Wuhan in December 2019.
It’s difficult to reconcile this interview of the former DNI with the recent declassified summary by the IC. If there is compelling evidence of a lab origin (which I had heard of back in August) then why did the IC agencies largely not reach even low confidence conclusions?
“The real question is whether or not research has the potential to create or facilitate the selection of viruses that might infect humans.” theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…
“All but two of the scientists consulted agreed that, whatever title it is given, the newly public experiment raised serious concerns about the safety and oversight of federally funded research.”
Although the study describing 4991/RaTG13 for the first time and Latinne et al.’s paper were described as having been funded by the EHA grant, I didn’t see even a glimpse of the 9 Mojiang mine SARSrCoVs throughout the 900+ pages of text, phylogenetic trees and other figures.
@fastlerner@MaraHvistendahl@theintercept “they actually point out that they know how risky this work is. They keep talking about people potentially getting bitten—and they kept records of everyone who got bitten. Does EcoHealth have those records? And if not, how can they possibly rule out a research-related accident?”
"There are compelling reasons to expect that the frequency [of outbreaks] will increase.. laboratories around the world handling dangerous pathogens is growing in part as a response to increasing pandemic risk, boosting the likelihood that a contagious pathogen could be released"
The old ways by which infectious diseases emerge have not suddenly disappeared. As the plan notes, there are now increased zoonotic transmissions from animals driven by human population growth, climate change & habitat loss.
But there are also new ways: lab release, bioweapons.