State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

[LiberalArkie]

April 14, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. CDT

Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.

What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

“During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable, which was drafted by two officials from the embassy’s environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists. (The State Department declined to comment on this and other details of the story.)

More

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

[jberryhill]

1. Ima just leave this here....

[BComplex]

2. Well now, that totally sucks.

We had been told that it was because people at the "wet market" were selling animal parts to aid in home "cures". Is that what China had put out there to assign blame, when all along they were creating this nightmare in a friggin' LAB???

[jberryhill]

3. You might want to have a chat with the people here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2469966

[LiberalArkie]

4. I don't believe they were creating anything. I think studying is a more proper word.

Scientists all over the world study different viruses to learn how the work, how they spread, how to kill them. Sometimes they accidentally escape.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. This may be me being sort of naive

but if they've been studying this- or something similar to this- wouldn't they have a better idea about what we're dealing with and how to respond to it? Or were they playing with fire and we all got horribly burnt?

[Igel]

18. Nobody said they were creating anything.

In fact, the analysis of the genome pretty much says if they were editing the thing they were using completely novel, newly innovated techniques and methods that nobody's ever seen. That's unlikely. Scientists like to brag.

The article says we don't have 'conclusive evidence." The only evidence we have is that there were concerns two years ago and that the virus originated there. That's weak evidence.

The claim is that it was transmitted through a pangolin, but later, more recent work (like last week) said that a more similar strain of coronavirus was found in bats in Yunan province a number of years back. Bats move around, so the same virus could have easily have been harvested wherever the bat-meat folk found their source.

It's not a big difference between "it hopped from bat to person" or "it hopped from pangolin" to person--we know that this happens, rarely. And it's not a big deal if it's just a sample that escaped, unedited, from a lab.

There's a bat colony near Austin, TX. And when the National Geographic "expert" heard about it, his response was spot-on: If nobody had already sampled that population to find out what viruses they were carrying, a grad student has his/her thesis topic and should have headed down there that day to find out.

The "wet market" was the obvious place to look, by the way. Two previous viruses with pandemic potential originated in them. So while the OP has great evidence in suspicion and proximity, it's overlooking past history and proximity.

It's human to find patterns in things--it's called pareidolia. It's also human to find agency and intent in things that are completely random. That wasn't a random discharge of static charge, that was Zeus throwing a lightning bolt. That wasn't a mistake, that was intentional--and we look for the most suitable person to blame. We personalize our universe, and it goes from random to intentional.

[LiberalArkie]

5. Do you do that on all the posts? What does it mean? If you believe I am spreading conspiracy

theories maybe you should send an alert. Is the Washington Post a bad source?

[JCMach1]

6. My working assumption for months: this was a lab f' up

Not conspiracy...

You just have to look at the shit show history of Ebola Reston ( that lab fuck up was brought to you by the good old USA and fine folks from Ft. Detrick) for a good working example.

In the 1980s America avoided a major Ebola outbreak in DC, ONLY because Ebola Reston only spreads easily to monkeys.

I have been saying for months on DU that the lab in Wuhan most likely had a containment breach of some kind.

The Chinese will/would have covered this up in a big way.

[robbedvoter]

8. So, it is possible it ESCAPED from a lab (rather than made in one)

NT

[roamer65]

9. It is the simplest explanation.

Usually those are the ones that are right.

Occam’s Razor.

[LiberalArkie]

11. Considering that the CDC now says to clean your shoes after going to a supermarket.

All it really takes to have a mistake is a new person working in the lab, or someone sneezes while getting out of their lab clothes, etc.

Why do you think the phrase "Shit Happens" was coined. When a person least expects it.

[matt819]

10. Interesting

But from what I’ve read online, and notwithstanding the conspiracy nuts, this virus wasn’t created in a lab. Now, it may have been mishandled in the lab at some point, but that’s not the subject of those cables.

[LiberalArkie]

12. That is what the article says, mishandled.

If a lab is studying a virus the conspiracy nuts think the lab is making germ warfare stuff. But where do people thing the antidotes, vaccines come from. They have to be studied first, taken apart and tested.

[matt819]

13. Two years ago

Could you draw conclusions about what’s happened this time? Maybe. But they would be more assumption than conclusion.

[LiberalArkie]

15. Sorry I did not directly respond to you.

The cables were a couple of years ago I believe. State said they were worried that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was not operating safely and could have an accident.

China had said that Wuhan Institute of Virology had been studying the virus when it broke out. Wuhan Institute of Virology even posted the RNA sequence real quickly and published it so other labs could work on it.

[MerryBlooms]

14. Aren't the labs over there always studying coronaviruses?

[LiberalArkie]

16. As far as I know just about every BSL in the world always are.

[chia]

17. "No extra assistance to the labs was provided by the U.S. government in response to these cables."

"During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable...

Sources familiar with the cables said they were meant to sound an alarm about the grave safety concerns at the WIV lab, especially regarding its work with bat coronaviruses. The embassy officials were calling for more U.S. attention to this lab and more support for it, to help it fix its problems.

“The cable was a warning shot,” one U.S. official said. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”

No extra assistance to the labs was provided by the U.S. government in response to these cables.

Although I subscribe to WaPo, I hadn't seen this article. Thanks for posting, this information exposing once again the inability of the Trump regime's rudderless ship of grifters and fools to achieve any semblance of the most basic ability to do anything right.

[crickets]

19. Yet another Donny Bungle moment.*sigh*