It strikes me as incredible that when in China to negotiate the Terms of References (ToRS) in July 2020, the WHO accepted totally restrictive ToRs despite deploring that China had hardly done any epidemiological investigation at all since Jan 20.

theguardian.com/world/2021/feb…

Peter Embarek even complained about it in an internal WHO memo that leaked.

Still China got a free pass and ToRs that forced the joint team to rely exclusively on Chinese studies (not even started - China having done near to nothing).

I cannot understand how one could accept that.

Is that because the ToR negotiation team leader, Peter Embarek, had spent 2 years in Beijing advising the Chinese government, and he could not imagine anything going wrong?

It also strikes me that for someone with a hammer everything looks like a nail.

So with zero experience of lab leaks investigation but a 'passion, interest and expertise in managing food safety' SARS-CoV-2 may well look like a food chain issue.

Some info I had missed:

“The joint team of Chinese and international scientists **began virtual meetings in the autumn of 2020.**”

theguardian.com/world/2021/feb…

Interesting.. Could we know more about that work?

Why was it never mentioned?
What was in these meetings? What was discussed?

Did they discuss getting proper access to data for instance?

@threadreaderapp compile