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WaPo Opinion: Did covid-19 escape from a Wuhan lab? The WHO report can't be the final word.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/22/did-covid-19-escape-wuhan-lab-who-report-cant-be-final-word/Hopefully WaPo isn't yet considered a right-wing conspiracy rag.
Opinion by David Feith
March 22, 2021 at 7:23 a.m. PDT
David Feith, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, is a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
The World Health Organization’s final report on its investigation into covid-19’s origin is due any day now. But a major revelation has already emerged: This month, two members of the WHO investigative team acknowledged that lab workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China were sick — from what, it is not yet clear — in fall 2019, before the public coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
That information confirms an assertion in a Jan. 15 statement by the State Department (where I worked at the time), and it represents the sort of fact pattern that investigators would expect if covid originated with an accidental lab leak, one of several possible but unproven theories.
So will the final WHO report focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Don’t count on it. Because the same WHO investigators who — responding to media inquiries — confirmed the existence of the sick lab workers immediately played down the importance of the information.
(snip)
Perhaps the WHO final report will supply evidence to justify the investigators’ apparent lack of interest in pursuing the lab-leak theory. Does the WHO have the names of the lab researchers who fell ill? Were they interviewed? Has the WHO seen their medical records? Antibody test results? If so, will the information be included in the WHO report?
How could such an important investigation risk its credibility by including possibly conflicted investigators? Well, the WHO investigation isn’t just a WHO investigation. It is a joint effort between the WHO, which convened some 19 international investigators, and the Chinese government, which selected 17 Chinese researchers and also had veto power over the foreign experts. The investigators won’t be able to publish findings without official Chinese concurrence.
March 22, 2021 at 7:23 a.m. PDT
David Feith, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, is a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
The World Health Organization’s final report on its investigation into covid-19’s origin is due any day now. But a major revelation has already emerged: This month, two members of the WHO investigative team acknowledged that lab workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China were sick — from what, it is not yet clear — in fall 2019, before the public coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
That information confirms an assertion in a Jan. 15 statement by the State Department (where I worked at the time), and it represents the sort of fact pattern that investigators would expect if covid originated with an accidental lab leak, one of several possible but unproven theories.
So will the final WHO report focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Don’t count on it. Because the same WHO investigators who — responding to media inquiries — confirmed the existence of the sick lab workers immediately played down the importance of the information.
(snip)
Perhaps the WHO final report will supply evidence to justify the investigators’ apparent lack of interest in pursuing the lab-leak theory. Does the WHO have the names of the lab researchers who fell ill? Were they interviewed? Has the WHO seen their medical records? Antibody test results? If so, will the information be included in the WHO report?
How could such an important investigation risk its credibility by including possibly conflicted investigators? Well, the WHO investigation isn’t just a WHO investigation. It is a joint effort between the WHO, which convened some 19 international investigators, and the Chinese government, which selected 17 Chinese researchers and also had veto power over the foreign experts. The investigators won’t be able to publish findings without official Chinese concurrence.
More at link above, perhaps behind paywall.
30 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Yes, WAPO will publish opinion pieces from RW pundits. This guy's educational "claim to fame?" A BA in History and postings to the State Dept. UNDER TRUMP, 2017-2020.
Not sure why you are determined to believe conspiracy theory rather than the world's prominent Virologists from CDC, WHO, the European CDC and elsewhere but you be you. If you are determined to believe the Trump and RW party line and all their various conspiracy theories, I can't help you.
DU should NOT be propagating this.
This "theory" has been dis proven by science a # of times.
