The Wuhan Whitewash – WSJ

The Biden Administration hasn t taken a definitive position on the lab-leak theory, but Covid-19 spokesman Anthony Fauci played down the idea last week. Dr. Fauci s institute financed work at the WIV and has backed gain-of-function research. He s the wrong man to reassure the public about lab research on coronaviruses.

Dr. Fauci was trying to rebut Robert Redfield, the former chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said last week that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory. Dr. Redfield added that virus transfer to a lab worker is not unusual in such research.

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Even the WHO recognizes the implausibility of the report. I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough. Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions, WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus said Tuesday. Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation. He s ready to deploy more specialists, but don t expect Beijing to welcome them.

The U.S. and 13 other governments released a statement Tuesday expressing shared concerns that the WHO study was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples. That s nice, but it sounds like they re prepared to conclude that Covid s origin story is unknowable and move on.

That shouldn t be the end of it. The Biden Administration knows the underlying intelligence and should release it to the public. Unless it does, China s propaganda backed by the WHO s failure will prevail in much of world opinion. The Biden Administration says it wants to revitalize multilateral institutions, and that should start with refusing to accept the WHO s Wuhan whitewash.

via www.wsj.com

RTWT.