"There is zero evidence that this virus came out of a lab in China," says scientist Peter Daszak abo

[riversedge]

“There is zero evidence that this virus came out of a lab in China,” says scientist Peter Daszak about the origins of coronavirus. He says the Wuhan lab doesn’t even have, in its inventory, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Link to tweet

?s=20




Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronavirus-vaccine-researcher-covid-19-cure-60-minutes/

An American scientist who collaborates with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had his grant terminated in the wake of unsubstantiated claims that COVID-19 is either manmade or leaked out of a Chinese government lab.

2020 May 11


Peter Daszak is a scientist whose work is helping in the search for a COVID-19 cure. So why did the president just cancel Daszak's funding? It's the kind of politics which might seem ill-advised in a health crisis. President Trump is blaming China's government for the pandemic. The outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan. The administration has said, at times, the virus is man-made or that, if it's natural, it must have leaked out of a Chinese government lab. Both the White House and the Chinese Communist Party have been less than honest. And so, in China, and the U.S., the work of scientists like Peter Daszak is being undercut by pandemic politics.



Peter Daszak is a British-born American Ph.D. who's spent a career discovering dangerous viruses in wildlife, especially bats.

In 2003, in Malaysia, he warned 60 Minutes a pandemic was coming.

Peter Daszak in 2003 interview: What worries me the most is that we are going to miss the next emerging disease, that we're suddenly going to find a SARS virus that moves from one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along...................................

[still_one]

1. That 60 minutes episode was damning. Unfortunately, most of the press seems to be taking the words

of the WH without evidence

WMDs redux

[intrepidity]

2. To be fair, there's also zero evidence it came from the Wuhan market

There's no direct evidence in either case, only circumstantial.