The sense of frustration and the pressures they were subjected to is palpable.

sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/p…

"Yes, lab accidents do happen around the world [--]. The fact that several laboratories of relevance are in and around Wuhan, and are working with coronavirus, is another fact. ***Beyond that we didn't have much in terms of looking at that hypothesis as a likely option. ***"

That's a weird statement. It cannot justify in any way declaring during the conference that the lab-related pathway was off the table.

It is patently clear that China has to kill it then and there, especially given the retained approach of continuously updating their assessments

based on new information.

It is an approach which #DRASTIC has been precisely advocating since early 2020 by the way, as you can see in the introduction of this paper:

zenodo.org/record/4067919

Note also
"If others want to pursue that hypothesis, it's there, it's being discussed openly and accepted. As I said, this would not be something that this team, or I believe even WHO alone, would be able to move forward on. That would have to be, I believe, a United Nations-wide

approach in consultation with member states, if that was something that the international community would want to move forward with."

So out of the WHO remit, too complex - too hot.

I can see why. So let's start discussing how to move forward indeed.

@threadreaderapp compile