Claim: China refused to hand "key data" to WHO delegation during the recent investigation in Wuhan

[galerkin]

A recent WHO delegation to Wuhan investigated various hypotheses on Covid-19 origins. You can find the briefing here.

Since yesterday there are various articles in mainstream media outlets claiming that China refused to hand "key information" to the investigations. In a New York Times article for example, they provide quotes from several members of the WHO delegation, but there is no indication or even insinuation from the investigators that China withheld or refused information besides this:

"We asked for that on a number of occasions and they gave us some of that, but not necessarily enough to do the sorts of analyses you would do," said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the W.H.O. team, referring to the confirmed cases.

The news that Chinese officials did not share raw data with the W.H.O. experts was reported earlier by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Wall Street Journal.

In a similar fashion, in the Wall Street Journal article on the same topic, Dr.Dwyer is quoted saying:

"They showed us a couple of examples, but that's not the same as doing all of them, which is standard epidemiological investigation," Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the WHO team told the Journal. "So then, you know, the interpretation of that data becomes more limited from our point of view, although the other side might see it as being quite good."

When Dr.Dwyer was interviewed by 9News however, we read the following (here Dr.Dwyer is quoted rather extensively in comparison with WSJ and NYT):

"The Chinese were very hospitable hosts, everyone worked together very well, it was a joint mission after all," he said.

"There were some clear differences of opinion and there were some quite firm and heated exchanges over things but in general everyone was trying to do the right thing and certainly WHO got more data than they've ever had before, and that's some real progress."

Professor Dwyer said one of the key differences was trying to get an agreement about what was happening just prior to the virus outbreak in the market in Wuhan.

"Some of the other evidence for example - genetic analysis of the virus and so on - would show the virus has probably been circulating maybe from mid-November, early December," he said.

"We also know the Chinese were reporting the people who went to hospital were really sick, but we now know - and to be fair they didn't know at the time. But we now know there's a lot of ordinary transmission going on between otherwise healthy people, so there must've been many, many more cases in December than were identified."

So far, it seems the claim that "China refused to hand key information" is based entirely on (interpretations of) what Dr.Dwyer said. Dr.Peter Daszak and Dr. Thea Fischer, both members of the WHO delegation, rebuked the claim:

Moreover, an Associated Press report on the same issue states:

WUHAN, China (AP) — A member of the World Health Organization expert team investigating the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan said the Chinese side granted full access to all sites and personnel they requested — a level of openness that even he hadn't expected.
Peter Daszak told The Associated Press on Friday that team members had submitted a deeply considered list of places and people to include in their investigation and that no objections were raised.
"We were asked where we wanted to go. We gave our hosts a list ... and you can see from where we've been, we've been to all the key places," Daszak said.

Some, including people close to former President Donald Trump, had speculated the institute may have been the origin of the outbreak because of its large collection of bat virus specimens and that Chinese authorities were covering up the truth.

However, Daszak said they were met during their visit to the high-security institute with a level of openness even he hadn't anticipated, and that suspicions surrounding it had been "politicized on a global scale."

 

[FatPhil]

Daszak isn't independent, he has no rightful place on any so-called "investigation".

 

[captancourgette]

Daszak isn't independent, he has no rightful place on any so-called "investigation".

Wheres your evidence for this? links please

 

[FatPhil]

Wheres your evidence for this? links please

It's hard to claim neutrality when he's been directly involved with the work in the Wuhan labs historically, and he has over a decade of co-authoring papers with Batwoman herself, e.g. (as randomly selected by google):

Science
. 2005 Oct 28;310(5748):676-9.
doi: 10.1126/science.1118391. Epub 2005 Sep 29.
Bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses
Wendong Li 1 , [EM]Zhengli Shi[/EM], Meng Yu, Wuze Ren, Craig Smith, Jonathan H Epstein, Hanzhong Wang, Gary Crameri, Zhihong Hu, Huajun Zhang, Jianhong Zhang, Jennifer McEachern, Hume Field, [EM]Peter Daszak[/EM], Bryan T Eaton, Shuyi Zhang, Lin-Fa Wang

-- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1118391

Virus-Cell Interactions
Bat Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Like Coronavirus WIV1 Encodes an Extra Accessory Protein, ORFX, Involved in Modulation of the Host Immune Response
Lei-Ping Zeng, Yu-Tao Gao, Xing-Yi Ge, Qian Zhang, Cheng Peng, Xing-Lou Yang, Bing Tan, Jing Chen, Aleksei A. Chmura, [EM]Peter Daszak[/EM], [EM]Zheng-Li Shi[/EM]
S. Perlman, Editor
DOI: 10.1128/JVI.03079-15

-- https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.03079-15

 

[galerkin]

How does that establish that Daszak is not independent? Is he working for the Chinese? Are the rest of the WHO team also working for the chinese? Can you produce evidence for these insinuation/claims at all? Moreover, what is "Batwoman"? Why are you using tabloid slurs against a chinese scientist?

 

[galerkin]

UPDATE: Further details on the supposed refusal to hand key data. Yesterday Science Magazine published an interview with the WHO mission leader Peter Ben Embarek, in which he addresses the issue:

Q: At the press conference you also said it was becoming clearer that there was no widespread transmission of the virus before December 2019. But there have been reports that China did not share all of the data on 92 patients who had flulike symptoms in 2019. (One team member has tweeted that her quotes on that topic were "twisted," however.) How confident are you that there was no spread of the virus prior to December 2019, what data is still missing, and why?


A: Part of the process of trying to find older cases than early December was to look at data coming out of different surveillance systems. The Chinese colleagues in advance of our arrival identified 72,000 cases from surveillance system for influenza-like illness, fever, and pneumonia. In principle, they could be potential COVID cases. So they tried to apply some kind of logical set of criteria to try to get to a smaller number of cases that would be worth exploring further. They went down to 92 cases. They were looking at a period first of October to December 2019, and there was no clustering in any way among these 92 cases. Then using serological tests [which look for antibodies to past SARS-CoV-2 infections], they managed to test 67 of these 92; the others were either unavailable, could not be traced, or had died. All 67 turned out negative.

We assessed all of this this work and suggested further studies. The idea now is to try to use other strategies to better assess these 67 cases or 92 cases. For example, by also doing serological tests on some confirmed cases from December 2019. If those are still positive, that gives better confidence that the 92 are [truly] negative; if some of the confirmed cases are now negative, it puts a question mark on the value of the serological test.

The other thing is that going down from 72,000 down to 92 shows that the criteria were perhaps a bit too stringent. It might be a better idea to revisit the process and find a less stringent set of criteria so maybe we end up at 1000 cases or so and then do the same evaluation.

Q: Several people have said there was a heated debate about this. Why?

A: Because we wanted to go back immediately and look at the 72,000 cases in a different way—discuss together what criteria and process each of the healthcare facilities had used to go down from 72,000 to 92. So there was a discussion about whether that could be done now, or whether we should wait. It was a standard scientific debate. It's frustrating, frankly, that we were not able to move quickly forward with new analyses. And don't forget the conditions were really difficult. We were in quarantine for four weeks, couldn't move easily around, et cetera. Under the conditions, it is not surprising that we had this disagreement. And it's still on the table. It is still planned for the future, so it's not out.

So, to sum up, for the period October 2019 - December 2019 the chinese surveillance system identified 72000 cases susceptible of COVID-19 (flu-like illness, fever, pneumonia symptoms). From this sample they applied a set of criteria and reduced the sample of interest to just 92 cases, of which only 67 were available for (serological) testing, and all of them turned out to be negative. As Dr. Embarek says, a) the criteria they used to reduce the number from 72000 to just 92 can (and will) be interrogated and b) different strategies can be applied in these 92 (or 67) cases of the reduced sample. This, as he states, "it's still on the table. It is still planned for the future, so it's not out".

UPDATE No.2: Peter Daszak further addressed the issue, more directly this time - pretty much addressing the claim directly:

 

[deirdre]

Moreover, what is "Batwoman"? Why are you using tabloid slurs against a chinese scientist?

Batwoman is a superhero. a good guy. she took over for batman when he died or something (don't quote me i dont watch batman movies)

Article:

Shi, a virologist who is often called China's "bat woman" by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years, walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/

 

[FatPhil]

Moreover, what is "Batwoman"? Why are you using tabloid slurs against a chinese scientist?

So you simultaniously don't know who "Batwoman" refers to, whilst admitting that you know who it refers to?

 

[Mendel]

Why are you using tabloid slurs against a chinese scientist?

It's not a "tabloid slur"; to my knowledge, Scientific American used it first (in 2020) on March 11th:

Article:

Shi, a virologist who is often called China's "bat woman" by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years, walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/

It expresses that she's one of the world's foremost authorities on bat viruses.

 

[Mendel]

It's hard to claim neutrality when he's been directly involved with the work in the Wuhan labs historically, and he has over a decade of co-authoring papers with Batwoman herself,

But it also means that he's very familiar with the work the lab is usually doing, what its capabilities are, and how the virus could have escaped from there if it did.

If you're going to send someone to investigate, you're going to want to send someone who knows their way around, right? (unless, of course, you're a conspiracy theorist; as with the election, sending someone to observer/investigate who has no clue whats going on leaves more room for Ctheorizing.)

What you are implying by saying that Daszak isn't "independent" is that both he and Shi Zhengli are so lacking in integrity that they would obstruct the epidemiologically vital investigation for the source of the pandemic to the point of futility. That's slander.

 

[FatPhil]

How does that establish that Daszak is not independent?

Given that I've shown a long-standing connection between the parties, I'd say that independence would be the unexpected exceptional circumstance that carries the burden of proof. I can't think of any other tribunal scenario where someone with such a demonstrable conflict of interest would be start with the presumtion of independence. He would be better as a witness than as an investigator.

People closely connected to the field, professional research molecular biologists et al. have said similar, this isn't just a random insinuation:

Richard Ebright at Rutgers:

'Peter Daszak has conflicts of interest that unequivocally disqualify him from being part of an investigation of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic,' said Richard Ebright, bio-security expert and professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

'He was the contractor responsible for funding of high-risk research on Sars-related bat coronaviruses at Wuhan Institute of Virology and a collaborator on this research.'

-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...m-investigating-original-source-outbreak.html

Dr Filippa Lentzos, biologist at King's College London:
"Goodness. I can't imagine a lead investigator with more vested interests!" --
Source: https://twitter.com/FilippaLentzos/status/1306525189484810241?s=20
(unverified, twitter no longer serves me pages)

Alina Chan at the Broad Institute:
"[he is a] long-time friend, collaborator and funder of the Shi lab" --
Source: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1306422038685454337?s=20
(ditto)
"[the Lancet Commission] could have also just asked the WIV to investigate themselves directly" --
Source: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1306671484371374082?s=20
(ditto)

Kristian Andersen, biologist at Scripps Research Institute:
"Not the right person for the job... That's ridiculous" --
Source: https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1306433718102274048?s=20
(ditto)

I'm curious who you think does support the myth of him being independent, no-one who I've seen express an opinion on the matter has expressed that opinion on it, or anything close. Got some quotes to support that position? And no, quotes of Dazsak himself declaring that he as no conflict of interest, whilst they do exist, don't count - 'cos he's not really independent on the topic of his own independence.

 

[galerkin]

I provided quotes from three other members of this team, not just Daszak. Are they too compromised? Can you provide evidence of conflict of interest for them too? Because even if we agree that Daszak has conflicts of interest, that doesn't establish that the claim we are discussing is correct (leaving aside the fact that other participants also denied that "China refused to hand data").

Apparently, Daszak received "an envelope with white powder" at his home some months back.

Again, is there any evidence that China refused to hand data to the WHO delegation?

 

[FatPhil]

Because even if we agree that Daszak has conflicts of interest [...]

Before we continue - can you just clarify if you do agree on that point or not presently.

 

[captancourgette]

It's hard to claim neutrality when he's been directly involved with the work in the Wuhan labs historically,

OK thanks, Yes it does look like a conflict on interest, that guy should not be part of the team in any main role

 

[galerkin]

Before we continue - can you just clarify if you do agree on that point or not presently.

I am not sure if what you have presented so far establishes conflict of interest. Daszak has also been funded by the Pentagon (through his company EcoHealth Alliance), so I guess one can make a counter-argument that even a Pentagon-affiliated scientist denies wrongdoing by the chinese government. So no, we don't agree on this point. But even if you are right, can you please address my previous comment?

 

[deirdre]

So far, it seems the claim that "China refused to hand key information" is based entirely on (interpretations of) what Dr.Dwyer said.

from what i see you are the one making that claim. the NYT article says

On W.H.O. Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data

The information could be key to determining how and when the outbreak started, and to learning how to prevent future pandemics.

and all your quotes seem to back up the notion that scientists were not given all the data they wanted. even your 'rebuttal' witnesses do not claim they were given all the information they wanted. and apparently they want it as it is considered "important".

so it doesnt really matter if scientists are credible or biased or just trying not to tick off CHina because they still want China to give them more information.

. your presentation of the claim is disingenuous.

 

[deirdre]

yea this sounds like pretty important information to have to form an independent analysis.

Article:

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert, said the team was given a summary but not the raw data known as "line listings," which includes questions asked of the patients, their responses, and the analysis of the responses.



Dyer said the team "persisted" in asking for the line listings. He said he could only "speculate" about why the team did not get what it asked for, but noted that, "The WHO people certainly felt that they had received much more data than they had ever received in the previous year."

Source: https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/who-team-member-china-has-not-handed-over-vital-info-covid-19-outbreak

 

[galerkin]

My presentation on the claim is based on the front title of the New York Times you just linked, on Reuters, the Hill, the WSJ and the BBC, among others. It is there on the title, with big fonts. Yet when we read the articles, that claim is significantly weakened, to the point of regurgitating specific quotes that simply do not validate the claim. I know how media can spin their narrative, but when you say someone refused to hand something, this implies that the other party asked for them and they were denied. Nothing of this sort follows from what I have already posted - on the contrary, more data will be available in the following weeks.

You quoted:

Dyer said the team "persisted" in asking for the line listings. He said he could only "speculate" about why the team did not get what it asked for,

So far I have not encountered Dwyer saying something like that. Can you provide his specific quote in full?

UPDATE: I found the following quote from Dwyer (from here):

Gaining access to the raw data was particularly important, seeing as only half of the 174 cases had exposure to the Huanan market - the defunct wholesale seafood centre in Wuhan, where Covid-19 was first detected. "That's why we've persisted to ask for that," Dwyer said.

"Why that doesn't happen, I couldn't comment. Whether it's political or time or it's difficult ... But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn't available, I don't know. "One would only speculate."

This seems to be the quote that Voice of America refers to and that all headlines are based on (predictably). Daszak directly denied that there was a refusal, same as Fischer. They also mentioned that more will come to the table in the future. Moreover, from Reuters, which refers to the same quote from Dwyer:

He said that gaining access to the raw data was especially important since only half of the 174 cases had exposure to the Huanan market, the now-shuttered wholesale seafood centre in Wuhan where the virus was initially detected.

"That's why we've persisted to ask for that," Dwyer said. "Why that doesn't happen, I couldn't comment. Whether it's political or time or it's difficult ... But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn't available, I don't know. One would only speculate."


While the Chinese authorities provided a lot of material, he said the issue of access to the raw patient data would be mentioned in the team's final report. "The WHO people certainly felt that they had received much much more data than they had ever received in the previous year. So that in itself is an advance."

A summary of the team's findings could be released as early as next week, the WHO said on Friday.

Emphasis mine. So I guess we have to wait for the summary.

 

[deirdre]

It is there on the title, with big fonts.

the big font says "important information".

Yet when we read the articles, that claim is significantly weakened, to the point of regurgitating specific quotes that simply do not validate the claim.

disagree. and i dont often side with the NYTimes.

I know how media can spin their narrative, but when you say someone refused to hand something, this implies that the other party asked for them and they were denied.

yup.

(from here):

it is preferable if you copy and paste the actual links, vs using hyperlinks.. so that we can see the source quickly and easily.

Daszak directly denied that there was a refusal, same as Fischer.

where? can you quote the direct denial?

So I guess we have to wait for the summary.

i'm willing to wait. but i'm not sure a "summary" is the same as the "final report". final reports usually take longer than summaries... but yea eventually it sounds like we will have an official documentation of it.

edit add: but i'd also like to reiterate that YOU are the one saying China refused to hand over "key" information. Most of the people in this political forum are not American, so i'm not sure where you are from, but in America "key" is a different word meaning than "important"

and "could be" means "could be".

 

[FatPhil]

I provided quotes from three other members of this team, not just Daszak. Are they too compromised?

Their *independence* is immediately in question simply by them working with Peter on this.

Can you provide evidence of conflict of interest for them too?

That's a straw man. A conflict of interest is a specific instance of a lack of independence that has not been claimed.

Because even if we agree that Daszak has conflicts of interest, that doesn't establish that the claim we are discussing is correct (leaving aside the fact that other participants also denied that "China refused to hand data").

On that matter I still see conflicting claims, neither side being entirely convincing to me presently, in particular with opposing sides putting forward their cases in a way such that both can be true. "Key data" is as easy to pin down as a true Scotsman. Unfortunately, very few secondary sources are what I would call neutral on this matter, so I will maintain my vaguely neutral posistion until a balanced and disinterested report convinces me. I am hoping that MB can be such a source, if the noise can be kept low.

Apparently, Daszak received "an envelope with white powder" at his home some months back.

And apparently he thinks Rihanna released one of the best albums in the last decade - but what's that got to do with the price of eggs in China?

Again, is there any evidence that China refused to hand data to the WHO delegation?

Well, why are you asking me, that was never my point? My point is that Peter Daszak is an tainted source of information because of his connections, nothing more. Which of course taints the report as a whole, even if the rest of the team was spotless.

 

[Mendel]

My point is that Peter Daszak is an tainted source of information because of his connections, nothing more. Which of course taints the report as a whole, even if the rest of the team was spot

I disagree with the premise, and I disagree with the "taint" logic.

As an aside:
I know that in many Western countries, giving foreign investigators access to the health records of 72,000 citizens would be a privacy problem, legally.

 

[obiwanbenobi]

they could give the raw data with names replaced by numbers.

what i want to see are the genomic variants that have been mentioned as existing early on and if that is factually true or not.

 

[Mendel]

they could give the raw data with names replaced by numbers.

what i want to see are the genomic variants that have been mentioned as existing early on and if that is factually true or not.

The thing is that you don't have that level of detail for 72000 people, and can't easily produce it. If you're looking for people with flu symptoms in flu season, you're going to find thousands of people with the flu, and even more with a more benign infection. You'll need to find a smaller subset of people to examine, and then try to find out if they had samples taken that are still in storage somewhere; and then you need to test these samples.

What I understand has happened is that the Chinese did that and didn't find anything; and that the WHO experts suggested some other ways to select a subset for testing, but that a) they don't have the data to run their selection algorithms themselves, and b) they'd still need to rely on the Chinese to find and test the samples, and even if the Chinese agree to cooperate, it'll take them time to get everything done -- which can then be spun as them not having turned over information that was requested, even though none of the experts would describe it like that.

 

[galerkin]

@

where? can you quote the direct denial?

Yes deidre. I have pasted his tweet and underlined the relevant sentence. Look up my previous comments.

the big font says "important information".

That's just dishonest. The titles say "China refused to handle important data". Why are you doing this?

 

[deirdre]

Yes deidre. I have pasted his tweet and underlined the relevant sentence. Look up my previous comments.

wouldn't it have been easier for you to just retype it? and what about Fischer? i cant find hers.

That's just dishonest. The titles say "China refused to handle important data". Why are you doing this?

your presentation of the claim says "KEY" data. i already explained my objection to your paraphrasing the claim in the title and your description. I'm a stickler about that stuff as i was a moderator here for 6.5 years. If i still was i would have edited your claim to not be a paraphrase.

Since yesterday there are various articles in mainstream media outlets claiming that China refused to hand "key information" to the investigations

anyway the newspapers quote a scientist with a name (not an anonymous source ie Dwyer) as their evidence to back their claim. One other scientist disagrees. We'll need to wait for the report to see who is telling the truth.

 

[deirdre]

say "China refused to handle

and this is a nothing issue, i'm just curious since you keep typing "handle".. is "handle" the same meaning as "hand over" in your country?

it is ok if it is, i'm just curious. and may help explain the discrepancy between "key" and "important".

edit add: ok the moderator just now changed the thread title from "handle to hand". so i'm just noting that here.

 

[galerkin]

So your objection is that instead of "key" (which I used in the title), I used the word "important" (because I was alluding to the NYT title)? Is that it?

"Handle" was a mistake. It should have been "hand over", like in my earlier comments. I just counted the number of times I used "handle" (aside from referencing your objection) and it is just one. So no, I don't "keep typing 'handle' ". And there is no discrepancy between "key" and "important" in this context. Unfortunately, I sense an irritation in your comment.

 

[deirdre]

So your objection is that instead of "key" (which I used in the title), I used the word "important" (because I was alluding to the NYT title)? Is that it?

no. my objection is you using key.

The NYTimes often uses bunk clickbait titles. But in this case they did not, and i think it is unfair to them for you to claim something they themselves did not claim.

 

[galerkin]

I think you are trying to score a comeback or something because I literally can't see how this can be an issue to anyone and if I am wrong, please, other people, voice your opinions. That I used the word "key" in the title of this thread instead of "important" changed nothing at all as far as context is concerned. Other outlets used the word "key" instead of "important" in their title:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...na-refused-to-hand-over-key-covid-information
https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...fused-to-hand-over-key-data-on-early-covid-19
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/china-refused-give-who-officials-23493473

But if we are having this (NON)issue over using "key" instead of "important", one can imagine how eager western media and politicians are in their campaign. That it is starting to look more like activism instead of journalism and is precisely the reason I made this thread.

P.S - and no, it is not unfair to the NYT that I used "key" instead of "important". It changes nothing in the claim they made.

 

[deirdre]

That it is starting to look more like activism

yea i'm defending the New York Times because of activism. (sarcasm)

but thankyou for linking actual examples of people making the key data claim. was that so hard?

 

[Leifer]

I don't see a problem with someone like Daszak being involved with investigating facts about Wuhan, especially as mentioned earlier, he was familiar with the Wuhan lab. But only as long as he is amongst a variety of other neutral investigators. This way, his input can also be evaluated by the others involved.

 

[FatPhil]

I don't see a problem with someone like Daszak being involved with investigating facts about Wuhan, especially as mentioned earlier, he was familiar with the Wuhan lab. But only as long as he is amongst a variety of other neutral investigators. This way, his input can also be evaluated by the others involved.

I dispute your use of the word "other" in that sentence. The implication of its use is that you consider Daszak himself neutral, a stance I strongly disagree with.

 

[Leifer]

That's not what I intended. I wasn't clear enough.
Change the word "other" to "completely".
From:
"....as long as he is amongst a variety of other neutral investigators."
To:
"...as long as he is amongst a variety of completely neutral investigators."