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This @NBCNews report on their field trip to Wuhan Institute of Virology has several errors, but the most glaring is that it misrepresents what U.S. officials wrote in diplomatic cables in 2018. I'll explain: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-wuhan-lab-center-coronavirus-storm-n1236254
The NBC story says that U.S. officials "said they observed" serious safety issues at the lab. That's just wrong. The officials reported the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists TOLD THEM about the safety issues. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ There's more...
Wang Yanyi, director of the WIV, told NBC reporters the U.S. officials visited in March 2018, two months after the first cable was written. The truth is they visited three times, both before and after the Jan. 2018 cable. Did U.S. officials make an entire visit? Not likely..
That calls into question Wang's credibility. She also says biosafety was not discussed. Again, calling several U.S. diplomats fabricators? NBC reports that without any pushback. But there's more...
The NBC reporters toured the lab, as if that would tell them anything. What did they expect to find, a piece of paper they forgot to throw out that says "Coronavirus Origin Evidence"? It's absurd to think that has any probative value. But there's more...
The NBC report says that Fauci "discounted the idea that the virus had accidentally escaped from a lab." If you read the interview, Fauci said its not important if it was a lab accident (which is wrong) but not that he rules out the possibility. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/#close
The NBC piece also launders more warped logic by Peter Daszak, who has a direct conflict of interest. "The fact that they published the sequence so quickly suggests to me that they weren't trying to cover up anything." Or, maybe they were so quick because they recognized it.
This, from Yuan, the Wuhan institute's vice director is interesting and true: "So far, there is no evidence to show that the novel coronavirus jumped from animals to people in Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan." No evidence.
Overall, the Chinese scientists can't be blamed for toeing the Party line. They deviate from that under penalty of death. But U.S. news organizations must do better than presenting a walk around a lab and an interview with falsehoods in it as telling us anything about the virus.
