On Friday, February 12, Reuters reported that the Wall Street Journal captured the views of members of the WHO mission that China was refusing to provide the WHO mission with its request for unprocessed data on early cases of Neocon that could have helped experts determine when and how the virus began to spread in China.
In a related report, the Wall Street Journal noted that some investigative experts from the WHO and the Chinese government had a “fiery” exchange about the lack of specifics. Specifically, the Chinese government had rejected a request submitted by WHO investigation experts who wanted unprocessed and personalized data on 174 cases from an early outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019. They said that Chinese officials and Chinese scientists provided them with detailed data summaries and case specific data analysis already done by the Chinese side, and not only that, but also provided investigators with detailed aggregated data and some retrospective studies of medical records from months before the Wuhan outbreak, and said that no clear evidence of the virus was found. But the WHO panel was not given permission to look at the unprocessed data under the retrospective study, saying it could help them conduct their own research into when and how the outbreak spread in China.
The Wall Street Journal quoted investigators as saying that other WHO member states would provide the anonymized, but unprocessed, data to allow investigators to see all other relevant details of each case. “The Chinese showed us a few samples, but that’s not the same as providing all the samples, and providing all the samples would have been standard practice in an outbreak investigation,” said Dominic Wyer, an Australian microbiologist on one of the investigative missions. “Although from the outside it looks pretty good, the interpretation of the data, from our point of view, is much more limited”, he explained.
Dominic Wyer said a few days ago through Australian media that the Chinese were very hospitable hosts and that everyone was collaborating, but “it was very clear that there were some differences of opinion and some very determined and fiery discussions around some things, but overall, “everyone tried to do their best,” he said. And the data that WHO got on this trip, and certainly more than ever before, is already a real improvement.”
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