What happened in Wuhan? Why questions still linger on the origin of the coronavirus – 60 Minutes – CBS News
Jamie Metzl — former NSC official in the Clinton administration and member of a WHO advisory committee on genetic engineering — is one of more than two dozen experts, including virologists, who signed an open letter earlier this month calling for a new international inquiry with a return to China. The letter says the WHO team did not have the independence or access “to carry out a full and unrestricted investigation” specifically into a possible accidental leak from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the first outbreak occurred.
Jamie Metzl: We would have to ask the question, “Well, why in Wuhan?” To quote Humphrey Bogart, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, why Wuhan?” What Wuhan does have is China’s level four virology institute, with probably the world’s largest collection of bat viruses, including bat coronaviruses.
Lesley Stahl: I had seen that the World Health Organization team only spent 3 hours at the lab.
Jamie Metzl: While they were there they didn’t demand access to the records and samples and key personnel.
That’s because of the ground rules China set with the WHO, which has never had the authority to make demands or enforce international protocols.
Jamie Metzl: It was agreed first that China would have veto power over– over who even got to be on the mission. Secondly–
Lesley Stahl: And WHO agreed to that.
Jamie Metzl: WHO agreed to that. On top of that, the WHO agreed that in most instances China would do the primary investigation. And then just share its findings–
Lesley Stahl: No.
Jamie Metzl: –with these international experts. So these international experts weren’t allowed to do their own primary investigation.
Lesley Stahl: Wait. You’re saying that China did the investigation and showed the results to the committee and that was it?
Jamie Metzl: Pretty much that–
Lesley Stahl: Whoa.
Jamie Metzl: –was it. Not entirely. But pretty much that was it. Imagine if we have asked the Soviet Union to do a co-investigation of Chernobyl. It doesn’t really make sense.
China had ruled out a lab accident long before the WHO team arrived at the airport in Wuhan on January 14 and were greeted by people in full PPE gear.
The team included some of the world’s leading experts on how viruses are transmitted from animals to humans. But even though there have been accidental lab leaks of viruses in China in the past that have infected people and killed at least one, no one on the team was trained in how to formally investigate a lab leak.
They were there for a four-week mission, but two of those weeks were spent holed up at this hotel in quarantine. Once out, they had some tense exchanges with their counterparts, a team of chinese experts, over their refusal to provide raw data.
via www.cbsnews.com
Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes – CBS News.