{"id":227913,"date":"2021-02-16T16:26:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T00:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=227913"},"modified":"2022-09-09T18:20:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T01:20:42","slug":"who-investigators-detail-political-environment-during-china-field-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2021\/02\/who-investigators-detail-political-environment-during-china-field-research\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO Investigators Detail Political Environment During China Field Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Ben Embarek, the leader of the World Health Organization\u2019s investigation into the origin of COVID-19, has walked back comments he made in Wuhan that seemed to endorse controversial Chinese government narratives. During a February 9 press conference that marked the end of the WHO\u2019s China field research<\/a>, Ben Embarek suggested that the virus might have been imported into China through frozen food, while seemingly ruling out the possibility that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a lab accident. Yet in an interview with Science Magazine\u2019s Kai Kupferschmidt, given after the WHO team\u2019s departure from China, Ben Embarek said that getting the lab origin hypothesis \u201con the table\u201d was a \u201cbig achievement\u201d and frozen food was \u201cnot a possible route of introduction\u201d<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

[The lab origin hypothesis is] not something we\u2019re going to pursue in the coming weeks and months. But our assessment is out there, and the topic is on the table. This is to me a big achievement, because for the past year it was mission impossible to even discuss it or even put it on the table or on the agenda of any meeting or discussion.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] But that\u2019s happening in 2020, at a time where the virus is widely circulating in the world, where there are multiple outbreaks in food factories around the world. It is probably an extremely rare event; we can see that from only a few dozen positive findings in China, out of 1.4 million samples taken so far. It\u2019s potentially possible, so it\u2019s worth exploring. But we have to separate the situation in 2020 with imported goods in China, and the situation in 2019, where that was not a possible route of introduction. There were no widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 in food factories around the world.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] The politics was always in the room with us on the other side of the table. We had anywhere between 30 and 60 Chinese colleagues, and a large number of them were not scientists, not from the public health sector. We know there was huge scrutiny on the scientific group from the other sectors. So, the politics was there constantly. We were not na\u00efve, and I was not na\u00efve about the political environment in which we tried to operate and, let\u2019s face it, that our Chinese counterparts were operating under. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Genomes form cases linked to the market were very similar. Other genomes were a bit different and those were not linked to the market, suggesting the virus was circulating in both the market and the city, says @Peterfoodsafety<\/a>.
(Also what he told me here: https:\/\/t.co\/H3b3HEOQKA<\/a>) pic.twitter.com\/HEryIXEVpo<\/a><\/p>\n

— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) February 15, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n