China rejects WHO push for more investigation into covid origins in Wuhan

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/22/china-covid-who-wuhan/



China said it will not accept the World Health Organization’s suggested plan for a second phase of investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, pointing to obstacles ahead for international efforts to determine the source of the pandemic. At a news conference on Thursday, Zeng Yixin, deputy head of China’s National Health Commission, fired back against WHO criticism of China’s level of cooperation, and said the U.N. agency’s proposed work plan did not respect science. “To be honest, when I first saw the WHO’s second-phase traceability plan, I was very surprised,” he said. “Because in this plan, the hypothesis of ‘China’s violation of laboratory procedures causing virus leakage’ is one of the research priorities. “From this point, I can feel the disrespect for common sense and the arrogant attitude toward science revealed in this plan.” He said it was “impossible” for China to accept the proposal.

The joint WHO-China report on the coronavirus origins released in March had said the pandemic probably began naturally and called the possibility of a lab leak at the origin “extremely unlikely.” That conclusion was criticized by many scientists as preliminary, including by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Last week, Tedros announced a five-part plan for follow-up research on the origins of the coronavirus. It called for deeper study in geographical areas with early outbreaks, more research of animal markets in Wuhan, and audits of research labs near where the first cases emerged. Tedros also held a news conference in which he criticized China’s cooperation, saying the country’s government did not share “raw data” with the WHO team that visited Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the source of the initial outbreak.

At the Thursday news conference, Liang Wannian, head of the Chinese experts in the WHO-China team, acknowledged certain patient data was not supplied to the foreign experts, citing China’s patient privacy regulations. “Just to protect the privacy of patients, we did not agree to provide original data, nor did we allow them to copy it or take photos,” Liang said. “At that time, the international experts also fully understood this. They believed that this was an international practice, not only in China.” The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. The WHO-China origin-tracing efforts have come under criticism from scientists for being slow, incomplete and politicized, with holes and inaccuracies in the limited data.

The WHO said last week it would be updating the joint report to fix “editing errors” after The Washington Post reported on discrepancies in the report’s profiles of early patients. A spokesman said the WHO could not resolve a discrepancy in the reported location of the first official case in Wuhan — a potentially significant detail, as it would determine whether all the earliest official cases were located near the Huanan seafood market or not. In May, President Biden called for further investigation into the possibility of a lab leak, ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to “redouble their efforts” to determine the coronavirus origin over the next 90 days. Yuan Zhiming, a researcher from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the main lab under scrutiny, also spoke at Thursday’s news conference. He said the virus was of natural origin, calling it the “consensus in the academic community.”

snip

[intrepidity]

1. Predictable and revealing

No doubt the peanut gallery will show up soon to applaud this decision.

Sigh.

[Devil Child]

2. Predictable response from the Chinese government

[Kennah]

3. Honestly what will knowing the origin change in terms of how to treat COVID?

Whether it originated in a lab or animals, does that meaningfully change how to address COVID? Still gonna use vaccinations, and if the CDC updates their recommendations with a new trivalent booster, I'm gonna get it.

Yes, it will be a political shitbomb if it came from WIV, even if it's release was accidental. But we're still gonna have to treat it.

What? If it came from WIV, and even if it were intentional, then we should not use the approved vaccines. Instead use those that China has produced, which is why BioNTech vaccines are now being imported to China.

There is circumstantial evidence that points to a lab origin, but I look to the overwhelming majority of peer reviewed papers saying natural origins.

If we did our own research and trusted our senses, we might be inclined to believe the Earth is flat.

Wonder if McCarthy will hold those hearings?