So the long-awaited WHO report came out and the document basically documented China's lack of cooperation with the COVID-19 origins investigation. 14 countries and WHO chief accuse China of withholding data from pandemic origins investigation https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/asia/who-report-criticism-intl-hnk/index.html It was supposed to offer insight into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. But since its release on Tuesday, the long-awaited World Health Organization investigation has drawn criticism from governments around the world over accusations it is incomplete and lacks transparency. In a joint statement, the United States and 13 other governments, including the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea, expressed concerns over the study's limited access to "complete, original data and samples." The European Union issued its own statement, expressing the same concerns in slightly softer language. The criticism follows an admission from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that investigators faced problems during their four-week mission to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019. In a news briefing Tuesday, Tedros appeared to contradict the study's central findings by suggesting the theory that the virus escaped from a Wuhan laboratory should be followed up -- even though the report noted such a possibility was "extremely unlikely" and did not recommend further research on the hypothesis. The WHO investigation, conducted more than a year after the initial outbreak, came under intense scrutiny from the outset. Some scientists and the US government have questioned the independence and credibility of the study, raising concerns over Chinese government influence. Beijing, meanwhile, has accused Washington and others of "politicizing" the origin of the virus. After repeated delays, the WHO report, compiled by a team of international experts and their Chinese counterparts, was finally released on Tuesday. It provides a detailed examination of the data collected by Chinese scientists and authorities from the early days of the pandemic, but offers little new insight or concrete findings on where and how the virus spread to humans. China has vehemently rejected any criticism or blame related to its handling of the pandemic. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that China has always been "a supporter for global scientific research on the source of the virus and its transmission routes." "The Chinese side offered necessary facilitation for the team's work, fully demonstrating its openness, transparency and responsible attitude," the statement said, adding the study of origins should also be conducted in other countries. Tuesday's joint statement, signed by the US and its allies, recognized the WHO experts' "tireless work" to understand how the pandemic started, but also raised questions over the timing and independence of the report. "It is equally essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples." The public rebuke from the US and others further highlights the difficulty of conducting transparent and independent scientific research into the origins of the virus, which has infected more than 128 million people and killed over 2.8 million worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Data access Speaking in the briefing Tuesday, WHO chief Tedros conceded the international experts faced problems with data access in Wuhan. "In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data. I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing," said Tedros, who had previously faced criticism that his agency was too close to China. Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert and member of the WHO team, told Reuters last month the team had requested raw patient data on the 174 early cases in Wuhan in December 2019, but was refused and provided only with a summary instead. In its own statement, the EU said the report was a "helpful first step," but it regretted "the late start of the study, the delayed deployment of the experts and the limited availability of early samples and related data." "Only through a thorough review of the origins of the virus and its transmission into the human population, will we be able to better understand and control this pandemic, and to better prevent and prepare for future health emergencies," the statement said. In comparison, the response from the US government was much more direct and strongly-worded. "The report lacks crucial data, information and data access -- and represents a partial, incomplete picture," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing. She said Chinese authorities "have not been transparent, have not provided underlying data -- that certainly does not qualify as cooperation." "[The report] doesn't lead us to any closer of an understanding or greater knowledge than we had six to nine months ago about the origin," she said. 'Political hurdle' The report examines four possible ways the coronavirus could have emerged, and concludes that it is most likely to have spread to humans from an intermediate animal host -- a belief long held by scientists. But it did not answer crucial questions on how that transmission happened. It recommends further studies to trace the animals sold at markets in and around Wuhan, including interviewing workers at wildlife farms and testing them for coronavirus antibodies. The report also says it is "extremely unlikely" the virus leaked from a laboratory incident -- a theory promoted by the previous Trump administration and fiercely denied by the Chinese government. "We just found no really tangible evidence or real leads on that, despite asking a lot of quite hard questions that were asked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Dr. Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team of experts who visited Wuhan, told CNN. "They tested all of the staff in the bat coronavirus group for coronaviruses, for SARS-CoV-2, to see if they'd been infected, and they were negative," he said. But critics say the report has failed to provide concrete evidence to dismiss that possibility. On Tuesday, WHO head Tedros said the report's assessment on the lab leak theory was not "extensive enough," and further data and studies would be needed to reach more robust conclusions. "Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy," Tedros said. Peter Ben Embarek, the lead investigator for the WHO mission, told the briefing the report was "only the start," admitting "we've only scratched the surface of these very complex set of studies that need to be conducted." The report makes a series of recommendations for further studies, including testing for for coronavirus antibodies in samples collected through blood banks prior to the Wuhan outbreak. Daszak said there was currently no plan set for the WHO mission to return to China to conduct further studies. "The understanding (is) that the next phase of this work will be to follow those recommendations and begin those studies, and we're already talking to the China side about our next steps and how we can help that happen," he said. But some analysts warned concerns that have overshadowed the WHO study could haunt future research, especially as relations deteriorate between China and Western countries. "The thing is that you won't avoid politics," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the US based Council on Foreign Relations. Huang said he did not expect the investigation to be transparent, WHO to play an independent leadership role, or China to be fully cooperative in the probe as long as a "political hurdle" remained.
WHO suddenly grow some balls? Did 5D chess Joe resume donations Donnie in his infinite wisdom rescind or something?
Some background about the lab in Wuhan... The Wuhan Lab At The Heart Of The Pandemic Origin Theory https://www.ibtimes.com/wuhan-lab-heart-pandemic-origin-theory-3172504 The Wuhan lab leak theory has been thrust back into the spotlight after the WHO chief reopened the hypotheses that the coronavirus seeped from its facilities. World Health Organisation director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday said the laboratory leak was the "least likely" hypotheses, but still needed "further investigation." China says full access was given to the lab and has hit out at the "politicisation" of the investigation into the cause of the global pandemic. But Tedros has kept alive a notion that WHO experts had earlier doused as "highly unlikely". Here are some key facts about the Wuhan Institute of Virology's lab: The institute houses a lab with a biosafety rating of "P4" -- the highest possible -- which is determined by the level of danger and resulting security measures posed by the pathogens studied there. P4-level pathogens include those that cause diseases such as Ebola. The P4 lab is Asia's first and was built at a cost of 300 million yuan ($42 million), opening in 2018. It houses the largest virus bank in Asia, with more than 1,500 strains. A P3 lab -- the biosafety level that includes coronaviruses -- has been in operation at the site since 2012. The institute studies some of the world's most dangerous diseases and previously conducted extensive investigations into the links between bats and disease outbreaks in China. Its scientists helped shed light on the Covid-19 pathogen in the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan. In February 2020, researchers there published work concluding that the genetic makeup of the new virus was about 80 percent similar to the SARS coronavirus, and 96 percent identical to a coronavirus found in bats. Many scientists think the virus that causes Covid-19 originated in bats and may have jumped to people via another still-undetermined mammal, and gained traction among humans in late 2019 at a wet market in Wuhan where wildlife species were sold as food. Liang Wannian, head of the Chinese contingent of the WHO mission, said at the mission's conclusion that animal transmission remained the likely route, but "the reservoir hosts remain to be identified". The P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan has been accused by some top US officials of being the source of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic Previous US diplomatic cables reported by the Washington Post had revealed concern in Washington about safety standards in the Wuhan facility. Shi Zhengli, one of China's leading experts on bat coronaviruses and deputy director of the P4 lab, further raised eyebrows in a June 2020 interview with Scientific American magazine in which she said she was initially anxious over whether the virus had leaked from her lab. Subsequent checks revealed that its gene sequence differed from viruses held at the lab, and Shi said she would "bet her life" that there was no leak, according to Chinese state media. But the theory was kept alive by the likes of Trump and his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo insisted last year that there was "significant evidence" that the virus came from the lab, while offering no such proof. Prominent global publications including Le Monde and the Wall Street Journal, as well as scientists at Harvard and Stanford, also kept the theory alive by publishing articles or reports saying it was a possibility. The WHO team's mission to Wuhan included a stop at the virology institute, where they met with Chinese scientists including Shi. The team's leader Peter Ben Embarek said at the end of the mission that the lab-leak theory was "extremely unlikely" and "not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies." The mission found nothing to overturn the general consensus within the scientific community that the pathogen appeared to be of natural origin. But questions about the lab persist, with critics noting that the WHO team's investigative hands may have been tied by strict parameters set by its Chinese hosts. Team members spent only four hours at the virology institute, just an hour at the wet market, and several days inside their hotel without venturing out into the city. In a subsequent interview with AFP, Embarek voiced "frustration" at lack of access to raw data while in China. On the laboratory accident hypothesis, he told reporters on Tuesday that Chinese lab staff had acknowledged they initially feared a leak. "Even the staff in these labs told us that was their first reaction," Embarek said. "They all went back to their records... but nobody could find any trace of something similar to this virus in their records or their samples."
After being completely uncooperative in the investigation of the origins of COVDI-19, the Chinese are claiming COVID-19 originated in a U.S. Military Lab... China Floats U.S. Military Lab as Possible COVID Origin Point, Urges WHO to Investigate https://www.nationalreview.com/news...-covid-origin-point-urges-who-to-investigate/ China on Wednesday urged the World Health Organization to investigate whether COVID-19 first originated in a U.S. military laboratory after the agency’s director called for a deeper probe into whether the virus had escaped from a Chinese lab. A WHO-led team that visited China earlier this year to investigate the coronavirus pandemic’s origins said in a report on Tuesday that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus had leaked from a Chinese laboratory and recommended no further exploration of that theory. However, just before the report’s release, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team’s probe into the potential lab leak was not sufficient and that further investigation was needed. He said he was prepared to send more specialists to explore that possibility, according to the Wall Street Journal. On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded to a question about Tedros’ comments by touting the team’s “important conclusion” that the lab leak theory was unlikely. “They have basically excluded the possibility of a lab incident” in Wuhan, she said. She also called on the agency to investigate early outbreaks in other countries and encouraged the WHO to investigate a U.S. military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. “As you know relevant study is already done in Wuhan labs, but when will Fort Detrick be open to those experts?” she asked. “If necessary, we hope the U.S. can be as open and candid as China.” For months Chinese officials have peddled the unfounded theory that the virus may have originated at Fort Detrick, which houses parts of the U.S. biological defense program and other medical research efforts led by the military, without offering any evidence. Hua would not say whether China would allow scientists to continue to investigate the labs in Wuhan or when it would start the second phase of studies outlined in the WHO-led team’s report. The WHO-led team was forced to rely on the word of the Chinese scientists participating in the investigation and were not given uninhibited access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where many public health experts believe the virus may have originated. The WHO report also contradicted U.S. intelligence claims about the safety protocols at the WIV. The report claims the lab was “well run” but State Department cables from 2018 reveal that diplomats who visited the facility had concerns that proper safety measures were not being observed. The report also suggests that no researchers at the lab came down with COVID but the State department announced in January that researchers reported flu-like symptoms in the fall, months before Chinese authorities acknowledged the COVID outbreak. WIV staff also deleted a genome database that contained information about which viruses were being studied at the lab. Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that he believes the coronavirus originated inside a lab in Wuhan and “escaped,” and was potentially spreading as early as September 2019. “If I was to guess, this virus started transmitting somewhere in September, October in Wuhan,” the virologist told CNN in a clip that aired Friday. “That’s my own feelings. And only opinion. I’m allowed to have opinions now.” Redfield said he is “of the point of view that I still think the most likely aetiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, escaped.” “The other people don’t believe that,” said Redfield, who led the CDC under former President Donald Trump. “That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out. It’s not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker.” The WHO-led team’s report also notes that it is possible the pandemic began outside Wuhan, or China, as the team found little evidence of substantial spread in Wuhan before December 2019, while the virus had been found in individuals in Italy and Brazil in late November. However, scientists have said it is possible the virus was spreading undetected in Wuhan and the surrounding areas for weeks or months before gaining attention. “The current thinking is that we are still working with the start in and around Wuhan and working backwards on how it came here,” said Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO team. “It is perfectly possible you would have sporadic cases in and around Wuhan before December, November, even October 2019…That earlier move of the virus outside of the area could potentially be explained that way.”
I think the Chinese lab staff were working with the pedophile pizza parlor staff, in the latter's unauthorized, unsecured basement lab.
How far we have come. OR NOT. We are back to where we started when the Chinese claimed that the American army released the virus into the wet market. MAY 12, 2020. Chinese Official Says US Army May Have 'Brought the Epidemic to Wuhan' https://www.military.com/daily-news...-us-army-may-have-brought-epidemic-wuhan.html
China is not winning any friends for not opening their doors to international forensic teams. If it's naturally occurring why give a fuck? Was Mexico as shady for the swine flu?
China is not playing their game well. The game is supposed to be that you keep everyone out for a year, execute or disappear anyone with knowledge and remove any and all records and evidence. Then you open your doors wide and let international inspectors come in and chirp about how cooperative you have been and that "after a full investigation" nothing was found. Seriously, the damage has been done. There is no amount of "opening the doors" that can reverse that after a year of prettying up the crime scene.
Yes... you would think that China would have "played this game" far better than they did. Instead (based on the news) they directly refused to provide at least 70% of what the WHO investigators asked for and were evasive on the rest. Maybe this is China making the point that they don't really give a hoot what western nations think and are defying to do something about it )both COVID and the South China Sea situation). China plans to just plow ahead with propaganda aimed at third world nations while building their influence across the third world -- while telling western nations (and some neighbors) to get lost.
Could be strategic. Let's say it's naturally occurring, telling the west to fuck off and "trust us" also goes a long way among ex-colonies. It'd be dumb as most third worlders know a thing or two about trusting Chinese products