@washingtonpost @PostOpinions I wanted to point out that the @TheLancet commission to identify COVID origins is chaired by the president of @EcoHealthNYC who has a massive conflict of interest wrt the WIV. https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1325277221817356288
I have concerns regarding how rigorous and productive @TheLancet 's investigation of lab origins will be. Considering that Dr. Daszak did not even know until recently that the closest full virus to SARS-CoV-2 had been actively sequenced in the WIV between 2017-2018.
And @washingtonpost @PostOpinions re: WHO, "Nothing can be off limits, no possibilities ignored." I agree, but as it currently stands, the WHO origins team will not be allowed to even talk to the index patients or visit Wuhan/the market, not to mention the WIV lab.
So while I agree with the messaging of your opinion that finding the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is đź’Żcritical to preventing future pandemics, I think you may have glossed over some major, possibly unsolvable obstacles to "a credible, impartial investigation".
At this point, I suspect the most likely outcome is not that we will know for sure whether this virus came from a lab or nature - but that we will never know because international investigations have been blocked on multiple fronts, and the most impt evidence is gone/unreliable.
In the absence of a credible investigation into SARS2's origins, we have to collectively operate as if each scenario = true: that SARS2 spilled over from trafficked animals, circulated in people living near bats, and emerged from lab-activities (virus collection/manipulation).
This means stronger (and effective) laws+enforcement against wildlife trafficking/habitat invasion, possibly relocating villages so people don't live in high risk spillover zones, initiating an international moratorium and ban on high risk pathogen sampling+characterization work.
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