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I talked to the head of USAID/PREDICT, who worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, about @joshrogin’s article.
Its goal was to stop viruses from jumping from bats, etc, into pandemics. Trump kneecapped it in 2019. ICYMI I talked to her here: https://katz.substack.com/p/audio-edition-the-pandemic-prevention?r=blkq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
Its goal was to stop viruses from jumping from bats, etc, into pandemics. Trump kneecapped it in 2019. ICYMI I talked to her here: https://katz.substack.com/p/audio-edition-the-pandemic-prevention?r=blkq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
Her big comment was that she thinks it is unlikely the Wuhan scientists had the virus that causes COVID-19 in their lab before the outbreak.
Why? Because if they had it, she says, they would have published their findings on it immediately.
Why? Because if they had it, she says, they would have published their findings on it immediately.
She also thinks that we’ve conflated a couple of different issues. She said she had not ever seen the cables @joshrogin referred to but that she thinks they referred to the need for support of a high-level biosecurity lab, a BSL-4, which doesn’t handle the virus discovery part.
That kind of special lab is where they would have done “gain of function”: tinkering with the virus itself.
But she notes that scientists seem to agree (and as @joshrogin also says) there is no evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused this pandemic was altered in a lab.
But she notes that scientists seem to agree (and as @joshrogin also says) there is no evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused this pandemic was altered in a lab.
Is it possible that this virus had just come in the door and leaked out before they could write a rapid paper about it, as they’ve done with lots of other coronaviruses? Maybe.
But she defended her former colleagues in Wuhan on the basis of the cables, saying that, “If the lab wanted and installed that high level of biosafety, it is clearly because they wanted to be doing the most safe and high-quality work.”
If you know something different, that either bolsters this case or disproves it, drop me a line! DMs are open. I can send you my number for Signal.
To me the big thing is still that scientists were working with the virologists in Wuhan to safeguard the lab and stop a coronavirus from jumping from a bat in China into the global human population. And Trump ended it all in Sept 2019. https://katz.substack.com/p/audio-edition-the-pandemic-prevention?r=blkq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
