Washington Post article highlighting the failings of the Wuhan biological facility.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... naviruses/

The smoking gun.

I used my Washington Post free views up months ago.
Care to give a brief summary?

Just typical american jingoism. All thanking god for trump. Oh and blaming everything on a science lab in wuhan.

Global Opinions
State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

A woman wearing a protective suit at a hospital in Wuhan, China.
A woman wearing a protective suit at a hospital in Wuhan, China. (Aly Song/Reuters)
Image without a caption
By
Josh Rogin
Columnist
April 14, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. GMT+1
Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.
In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.
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What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.
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“During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable, which was drafted by two officials from the embassy’s environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists. (The State Department declined to comment on this and other details of the story.)
The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.
As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.
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“Most importantly,” the cable states, “the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention.”
Opinion | Don't broadcast Trump’s press briefings live. They contain more questions than answers.

The coronavirus pandemic is too serious to let the president hold freewheeling press briefings in real time, says Post media critic Erik Wemple. (Joshua Carroll, Erik Wemple/The Washington Post)
The research was designed to prevent the next SARS-like pandemic by anticipating how it might emerge. But even in 2015, other scientists questioned whether Shi’s team was taking unnecessary risks. In October 2014, the U.S. government had imposed a moratorium on funding of any research that makes a virus more deadly or contagious, known as “gain-of-function” experiments.
As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.
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“The cable tells us that there have long been concerns about the possibility of the threat to public health that came from this lab’s research, if it was not being adequately conducted and protected,” he said.
There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, which operates at biosecurity level 2, a level significantly less secure than the level-4 standard claimed by the Wuhan Insititute of Virology lab, Xiao said. That’s important because the Chinese government still refuses to answer basic questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus while suppressing any attempts to examine whether either lab was involved.
Sources familiar with the cables said they were meant to sound an alarm about the grave safety concerns at the WIV lab, especially regarding its work with bat coronaviruses. The embassy officials were calling for more U.S. attention to this lab and more support for it, to help it fix its problems.
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“The cable was a warning shot,” one U.S. official said. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”
No extra assistance to the labs was provided by the U.S. government in response to these cables. The cables began to circulate again inside the administration over the past two months as officials debated whether the lab could be the origin of the pandemic and what the implications would be for the U.S. pandemic response and relations with China.
Inside the Trump administration, many national security officials have long suspected either the WIV or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab was the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to the New York Times, the intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm this. But one senior administration official told me that the cables provide one more piece of evidence to support the possibility that the pandemic is the result of a lab accident in Wuhan.
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“The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the official said.
As my colleague David Ignatius noted, the Chinese government’s original story — that the virus emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan — is shaky. Research by Chinese experts published in the Lancet in January showed the first known patient, identified on Dec. 1, had no connection to the market, nor did more than one-third of the cases in the first large cluster. Also, the market didn’t sell bats.
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Shi and other WIV researchers have categorically denied this lab was the origin for the novel coronavirus. On Feb. 3, her team was the first to publicly report the virus known as 2019-nCoV was a bat-derived coronavirus.
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The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.
On Feb. 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new biosecurity law to be accelerated. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Chinese government has placed severe restrictions requiring approval before any research institution publishes anything on the origin of the novel coronavirus.
The origin story is not just about blame. It’s crucial to understanding how the novel coronavirus pandemic started because that informs how to prevent the next one. The Chinese government must be transparent and answer the questions about the Wuhan labs because they are vital to our scientific understanding of the virus, said Xiao.
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We don’t know whether the novel coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab, but the cable pointed to the danger there and increases the impetus to find out, he said.
“I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory. I think it’s a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered,” he said. “To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future.”

Oh I don’t think the Washington Post has a reputation for that sort of nonsense. You never heard of Watergate/Woodward/Bernstein?

I think it’s a very plausible theory. Whatever the source though it’s here now and has to be dealt with. That is for when it’s all over. It’s important that it can’t happen again.

It alters nothing or how history views leaders and governments who handled this crisis well (Ireland, Taiwan, Germany) and those who didn’t and have blood on their hands (US, UK).

You could have a listen to this guy, Sounds like he may know a thing or three.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIz2nfX ... e=youtu.be

The ‘inventor of E Mail’ is the expert we all need here.

All that highlights is how fucked up and mental the US is to put shite like that on a ‘News’ channel.

One minute and thirty I got into that at and I’m never getting a second of that back.

Anything trump puts out is likely to be a lie or a very screwed up interpretation of the truth. But many americans are seriously gullible halfwits so believe anything and then thank god for it.

"And there we have it"

The amazing part in all this ( I was going to say amusing but it's too serious for that) is the experts on here have proved time and time again that they are only interested in articles that suit their purpose and dismiss, out of hand, articles that don't, which underlines beyond doubt that their only intention is to undermine their own elected ( by a huge majority) government.
I actually find that despicable.
I'll go as far as to say that Captain Tom Moore would find it despicable as well.

All we have is a fair reaction to you posting an absurd conspiracy theory whilst thousands are dying every day of this awful virus.

My guess is that was a few weeks ago before the shit really started to get real in the US I imagine they would probably think twice now about airing crackpot theories pointing the finger at ‘big pharma’. It would be like them sticking ‘loose change’ on the news while the Twin Towers were still burning.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
You have a country that's been the main supplier of pandemics since time immemorial, and in looking for ways to stop those pandemics, you (possibly) ... create a pandemic.

So where do pangolins come in?

And why is this patient zero not the same one as in the WP? This one definitely did frequent the market.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/27/shrimp-ve ... ient-zero/

You need to be 100% sure you have the right answer if you want to stop the next one. There's been enough guesswork now.

Ok, Everyone is allowed an opinion, At least in my world.

Try this one https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/johnson-j ... arly-2021/

If you had bothered to watch the whole video you would have seen that this crack pot as you put it mentions the above
And its implications on us ALL.

I'm surprised you don't understand my point but never mind. I've made it and there we are.
On Captain Tom Moore. What comes across to me is not once has he been negative towards any person during his interviews, not once has he called any member of the team fighting this and his message is stick together and we'll come through it. He has shown the true meaning of an officer and a gentleman and he loves Queen and country. He has everything to do with this as have you and I. We're all in this together and he has demonstrated that and encourages it. He is showing us how to behave, and I am holding him up as an example. If you think that's a cheap shot then you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't.
I'm also surprised that you have picked up on what you call a cheap shot. it's not as if you haven't seen any others. We can all be accused of chucking out cheap shots so why the sudden passion against cheap shots.
Maybe your comment is a cheap shot in itself. Interesting
Hope your Mam is in good spirits and, if you are at home all day at the moment, bossing you about.

Everyone really needs to stop believing we are all in this together.

Try telling that to someone that lives on the 18th floor in a council flat whilst this laudible old fella lives in a mansion surrounded by his family.

And all those celebrities telling us all we are all in this together as they take a dip in their outside pool.

And they telling that to all the firms being refused the emergency loans promised by the government by the banks.

Or those now unemployed.

We are most definitely not all in this together. Never were and never will be.

Would it be really insensitive of me to suggest that the country is going a little over the top about a bloke walking round his garden?

I agree with you. And some house and garden he has too.

It was more wider than that. The point I'm making is that people are picking and choosing what to highlight to underline their incessant attack on the team in charge of weaving our way through this.
Boris bashing, government bashing.....call it what you want. The amount of copying and pasting just to bash the government is ridiculous. Look what I've found in the Daily so and so and because it happens to say what I believe it must be right.
The one thing you have never seen me do is copying and pasting somebody else's view on things, especially quoting newspapers. I prefer to make up my own mind. Somebody could ask the time and ten newspapers will interpret the answer differently. I have hammered Corbyn but only with my own view and have never copied and pasted the view of any newspaper just to underline my point. Some people must spend all day trawling the rags but always looking for the negatives and never give any credit. I just don't see it as right.
It's almost as if they want the government to fail. I called that particular behaviour despicable. Don't play clever games with that statement and make it imply that I'm calling people despicable because they are not, and nor am I suggesting they are. It is simply one facet of behaviour that I don't agree with.
It is my opinion I am giving and if you are going to quote it, be fair and quote it verbatim.
I really have no more to say about this.
I'm glad your Mam is coping.
It is being suggested in some quarters that the over seventies will have to stay in quarantine until either a vaccine is established or some other form of drug to fight this disease is created. As that could take up to eighteen months your task of looking after Mam and mine of looking after meself is going to get a bit more complicated. I do have a wife and daughter to look after me though. I'm an outdoor guy at heart so god knows what state I'll be in after eighteen months of this.
No comments please !!!!

Some people would probably think so but I personally got a bit of comfort from it.
The money raised is obviously welcome and the nurses on the telly responded positively to it and it is for them so good on him.
The BBC sometimes go overboard but they mean well.....I hope.
The one sad thing is that the old boy has had to postpone his birthday celebrations and that's a shame.
Hopefully he'll get his big day. On the other hand he might welcome the loss of fuss.

Posting links to news articles isn’t ‘copying and pasting’ it’s just suggesting people read it as they might find it interesting or helps enhance a thread or adds a bit of weight to a point they are making. Everyone is entitled to agree or disagree with the tone. Surely what you read and what you see on the news helps form your opinion unless you are sourcing the information yourself?

Who isn’t making up their own mind here out of interest?

I have genuine concerns based on what rest the World are doing and the UK aren’t. I am living somewhere which enforced more decisive and much stricter lockdown measures much sooner. Maybe that gives me a different perspective and makes me even more dumbfounded at the UKs handling of this awful virus.

Agree completely PJ. Some appear to think it's better just to believe the government for now as they have our best interests at heart.

They dont obviously. But for some reason some are cutting them a bit too much slack. We are a mess. And ministers appearing at the daily briefings lying through their back teeth. If they are let off now they will get away with it when the inquests happen later.

Posting a link to something is basically like passing someone a newspaper article or magazine and saying “have a read what do you make of that?”

I am not sure why someone why pride themselves on not doing that!?

Just been saying as much to Mme Poolier 'cos he's been on French telly too. Don't get me wrong, I admire what the bloke has done, but the going viral bit isn't his doing. No doubt he's chufled to bits and rightly so, but i'll bet you a thousand europounds he'd laugh in your face if you called him a hero. Britons need something to focus their notoriously short attention on and he came along exactly at the right time. What's the bets on his being promoted to Major Tom? I'd fucking love that.

Washington Post, what a joke, hardly any Tyneside based news on it...

FYI the Pangolin is the transitional species in this to get to humans as it can’t go straight from bats eg like all Coronavirus