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China Medicine The Media Science

Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn't Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation (twitter.com) 95

Posted by EditorDavid from the international-relations dept.
Friday the New York Times (following up on reports from the Wall Street Journal) wrote that China had "refused to hand over" important raw data to a 14-member World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus, reporting that "their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team's persistent questioning and demands for data."

But Saturday two of those 14 team members disputed that characterization, posting on Twitter that "This was NOT my experience" — even though the Times had quoted both of them to support its article.

First Peter Daszak, president of the U.S. national science academy's microbial threats forum, weighed in. "As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust and openness with my China counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways. New data included env. & animal carcass testing, names of suppliers to Huanan Market, analyses of excess mortality in Hubei, range of covid-like symptoms for months prior, sequence data linked to early cases & site visits w/ unvetted live Q&A etc. All in report coming soon!"

Then Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the team, tweeted that the Times hadn't accurately described her experience either. "We DID build up a good relationship in the Chinese/Int Epi-team! Allowing for heated arguments reflects a deep level of engagement in the room. Our quotes are intendedly twisted casting shadows over important scientific work."

Daszak reappeared to respond to her tweet, writing "Hear! Hear! It's disappointing to spend time with journalists explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China, to see our colleagues selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began. Shame on you @nytimes!"

Ironically, the next day the Times published a longer interview they'd done with Daszak, which acknowledges that Daszak "said that the visit had provided some new clues..."

The Times had even specifically asked him if China's attitude made their work difficult, to which Daszak explicitly had answered: no.
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Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn't Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation More

Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn't Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation

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  • Well sure (Score:3, Funny)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Sunday February 14, 2021 @08:47PM (#61064250) Journal

    In a nation subject to extreme intolerance of viewpoints counter to the Party line, witnesses recanted damning testimony. Nothing is more certain of occurring than tomorrow's frigid weather forecast.

    • Everybody keeps talking about "The Party Line", but nobody ever mentioned if it's a free 1-800 number or a paid-per-minute number.

    • Re:Well sure (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Sunday February 14, 2021 @08:51PM (#61064262)

      That explains the US scientist, but what about the Danish one?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sgage ( 109086 )

        Too funny! I had some mod points yesterday, but they seem to be gone now.

      • It's difficult to believe there's a poster on /. with a critical bend against the US...

        Regarding the Dane, when Sweden is playing Denmark, the line score reads SWE-DEN... the letters not used are D_E_N_M_A_R_K.

        Cavaet: The Queen of Denmark rocks like Slayer.

      • Hello, handsome! Follow the link, and I wouldn’t let you fall asleep tonight! ==>> https://v.ht/Dt67 [v.ht]

      • Neither person quoted contradicted the Times report, they simply pushed back on the characterization of the details. Because they're experts in plain English? Oh, wait, no, they're actually not experts in how to characterize the data, they're only experts in describing the data with jargon.

    • the Chinese Government is not necessarily the Chinese people. They're not a monolith, and while the government is probably interfering (like a certain other government [npr.org]) the people on the ground are probably just trying to do their job and end the pandemic.

    • Except then the times published the full transcript and it says something else entirely. Meaning the times lied.

      Then again I don't trust the ny times, wall street journal, fox news or msnbc. Caught them in outright lies to many times without corrections.

    • Are you talking about China or the United States?
      The only difference in the United States you can choose 1 of 2 parties to align with. You will be still treated like crap but you at least have enough people on your side to have political protection from them.

      • And if you dont follow the party line, you will be censured by the party. Independent thinking is not allowed. The party that campaigns against cancel culture is busy cancelling out internal dissent.

    • you didn't read the article, did you?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • NY Times not so objective (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcle ( 1575627 ) on Sunday February 14, 2021 @08:56PM (#61064272)

    They've been taking a lot of flak recently for slanted articles and pre-conceived opinions. The Old Gray Lady ain't what she used to be.

    • Re: NY Times not so objective (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Sunday February 14, 2021 @08:58PM (#61064278) Homepage
      They have long been biased on the wrong side of history, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

    • Define "objective", please.

      Because if you think you can find a definition that gets you what you think it means, that is compatible with reality, you don't understand reality enough.

      Given how reality, and especially the brain and human society work, the correct term for what you mean by "objective" would be "matching MY bias".

      In the sense that there is no such thing as a human mind processing information, that is not "biased". So it's not bad or wrong. The bad or wrong thing is acting like anyone's bias is

      • Define "objective", please.

        Many would suggest it to be synonymous with unbiased or non-judgmental, but I'm not sure that exists.

        What we commonly call reality does exist though, and it is immutable, so accurately representing that would be as much as I could ask for.

        Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

      • Don't play word games and make excuses for this crap.

        Yes, everyone is biased, and that bias seeps into everything. That being said, there's a difference between making a good faith effort to counter your own bias, versus deliberately ignoring things so you can tell the story you feel like telling rather than present events as close as you can to what actually happened.

        And I'm sure you'll say that it's just a matter of degree and where to you draw the line, but if someone's bias (even while making a good fa

    • Eh, they seem to have the same vivid yellow they've always had.

    • A couple of people remember a conversation differently. That doesn't automatically make NY Times bad. We don't actually know where the communication difference happened. Maybe the interviewee's flipped their story for office politic reasons. It happens.

  • The New York Times has always and will always be a propaganda rag of the worst and most hateful part of Americans. It's like complaining that Russia Today distorts reality on Russia, and glorifies it. ;)

  • Of course China isn't cooperating. If they did, it would lead back to the United States CDC, NIH or whomever started this to develop a "germ warfare" virus that was shut down because it was too dangerous, FUNDED the Wuhan lab so they could continue development and either by design or mistake, it got out into the wild.

  • Teh NYT are the same people who just gave us 4 solid years of RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA and now they are oh so concerned about election integrity (while completely ignoring the mess in their own backyard)... shooting down the NYT on their own turf used to be fun, but now it's just routine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      NYT are the same people who just gave us 4 solid years of RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA

      Just because the driver of a weaving car turns out not to be drunk doesn't mean the investigation was a "hoax". Trump it turned out is just a big fan of Putin, not a knowing collaborator. T is just a bad "driver".

  • Why 1 year delay in providing data and records? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anon42Answer ( 6662006 ) on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:58AM (#61064794)

    Paperwork, records, data, etc should not take an IN PERSON visit to China and should not have taken 1 year wait to get.
    Why wasn't the paperwork, records, data, etc electronically transferred to the WHO within 30 days of gathering?

    Because China is NOT our friend. Because China is not helping the WHO.
    Because China is yet again using delay tactics and misdirection to obfuscate what really happened at the time.
    And to provide distraction from other human rights violations and atrocities - concentration camps, forced reeducation, involuntary organ harvesting from political prisoners and undesirables.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by k2r ( 255754 )

      > Paperwork, records, data, etc should not take an IN PERSON visit to China and should not have taken 1 year wait to get.

      Moving goalposts while not knowing anything on the game.

      > Because China is NOT our friend.

      That was never the point.

      > And to provide distraction from other human rights violations and atrocities - concentration camps[...]

      The WHO team was not in China for that but to gather data on SARS-COV2, so the question is if China was cooperative in the aspects relevant for those scientists.

      T

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Paperwork and data was shared early on. So was research, such as warnings about early mutations and the first sequencing of the genome.

      Why do you think this wasn't done? Who has been telling you these lies?

    • Because China is NOT our friend. Because China is not helping the WHO.

      Really? I thought the entire USA right was saying China and the WHO were BFFs and in bed together.
      Criticise China all you want but I advise you to take a long hard look in the mirror while you do. International relationships between the USA and other countries (including its western "allies") hasn't been as bad as the past year since the cold war. There are no friends in the world at present, especially not with America.

    • The team were not there primarily to sift through paperwork or other records. They were there to direct Chinese resources to analyse the records in real time during their visit and to discuss with Chinese scientists how to best further the research into the origins of the virus. This is an effort involving hundreds of people.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Further, the WHO researchers report that they complain of needing some data, and then the Chinese provide it to them. So they're not actually verifying facts for the most part, they're just getting what they're handed and then handing it on. And China already falsified some of that kind of data earlier on, about case rates and so on. So why do they believe the data China is giving them now?

      China already acted in bad faith regarding Covid data. They went so far as to suppress their own medical professionals

    • There are plenty of legit reasons why China is bad. It doesn't make sense to gin up new reasons or fabricate a tale of uncooperative people when there are numerous good reasons to take China to task. It just obfuscates what the real problems are. All the things you list at the end are probably true, but complaining that they're uncooperative with the WHO is the real distraction. Listen to the scientists on the ground that said things were fine and they were misquoted by the NYT; anything else is unhelpful.

      Y

    • Why wasn't the paperwork, records, data, etc electronically transferred to the WHO within 30 days of gathering?

      Because it is on paper?

      And what actual record do they want? Does China know the WHO wants "some records"?

  • Shame on you NYTimes indeed, for not detailing Daszak's prior financial relationship to the Wuhan lab he was "investigating" in your reporting. Investigating a lab you bundled funding for in years past (and profited personally from the relationship) is a conflict of interest, and the Times knew that. They just chose not to mention it in their reporting.

  • Peter Daszak is a biologist who has been active in virus surveillance in animals, to prevent spillovers that cause pandemics like the one we are in now. If only we spent a few more hundred millions, rather than suffer trillions of health and economic damage ...

    Listen to him on Bats and Coronavirus [youtube.com], and the EcoHealth Alliance [youtube.com].

    • He is also a champion of gain-of-function research [nature.com], controversial research that makes viruses more lethal and contagious to humans in order to study them.

      He has a strong incentive to prove it did NOT come a lab, because it would highlight the extreme risk of doing this kind of research. There are scientists on both sides of this ethical debate. He is not an impartial researcher.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kbahey ( 102895 )

        The term "gain of function" is too broad and misunderstood in the media. When the public hears it they think Hollywood disaster movies of escaped virus and so on.

        When in fact, it is this ban on "gain of function" that partially what led us here in this pandemic.

        Since 2014, scientists were saying the ban is too broad and will affect virus surveillance [nature.com].

  • ..to support the number of idiotic bullshit narrative supporting posts we're seeing.

    Slashdot is seen as an influential social media site, and will inevitably have employed sockpuppets - nay, let's call them bullshitpuppets - parroting the narrative of US foreign policy as part of Influence operations.

    Or simply useful idiots?

  • Scientists have been able to construct perfect viruses from the known genomic sequence since at least 2002.

    Eckard Wimmer constructed the polio virus in a lab [nih.gov] that was indisguishable from a virus in the wild. It was active, they injected it into mice who became paralyzed and died. The idea that a lab created virus would have clear markers is completely false.

    It is not a lizard people conspiracy to think that the virus could have been made in a lab, then escaped on accident.

    We should continue to find a natura

  • Might have worked 20 or 30 years ago. But a lot of the international community have woken up to that.

    Biggest difference between US and China....China don't try to hide what they do RE: surveillance, censorship, etc. whereas the US tends to try and be sneaky for as long as they can before being caught out.

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