Video from Feb. 2020: "Is it a Complete Coincidence" that the Covid Outbreak Happened Just Near the Lab?

I questioned the CDC about lab origins before the pandemic was a pandemic. This highlights the importance of asking and disseminate timely, probing questions -- and the need to scrutinize answers.

I asked about the origins of the outbreak at a news conference with the CDC's Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat at the National Press Club on Feb. 11, 2020, video and transcript below.

I’m not sure, but I might have been the first journalist to publicly ask about lab origins.

From the start, her disingenuous response, for example, portraying direct questions as “comments” struck me as highly suspicious.

When I asked a follow up — basically if the virus might not have been collected in caves over a thousand miles away and then brought to the labs in Wuhan where it might have escaped, she made no attempt to provide a serious answer.

Instead she spoke of “rumors” to dismiss the possibility that Covid could have lab origins. She talked of the Ebola 2014 outbreak, claimed that similar “rumors” then “had to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak.” It seemed an insidious way of trying to shut down honest inquiry.

I’d wanted to ask another followup (but I was already pushing the envelope):

So, if these outbreaks keep happening near labs, doesn’t that imply that a serious reexamination of the entire subject is desperately needed?

But I didn’t do that for a variety of reasons. What I did do over time was co-author an in-depth investigation on the Ebola outbreak, which, as it turned out, had multiple connections to the Covid outbreak.

This case highlights that this subject isn’t about particularly nefarious Chinese conduct. The problem is the creation of deadly pathogens and the secretive, militarized nature of the work.

Scratch a lie, find a thief.

Husseini: Obviously the main concern is how to stop the virus and deaths and so on. But I think that we should look into the origins of this. Is it the CDC’s contention that there's absolutely no relation to the BSL4 lab in Wuhan? It's my understanding this is the only place in China with a BSL4 lab. We in the United States have I think two dozen or so and there have been problems and incidents. Some of them have been shut down out of concerns of leakage of potential pathogens. And it's an ethical struggle in the United States about gain of function research. That is, research that actually attempts to make pathogens more lethal. China is a very opaque society [with a] totalitarian regime. We have no idea, or I don't know, you tell me: Do you have any idea of what kind of research could potentially be done? I'm not contending that this was intentional in any way. I'm just asking is it a complete coincidence that this outbreak happened in the one city in China with a BSL4 lab and shouldn't we be having at least some of the discussion about the ethics of some of the research that happens here? Thank you.

Schuchat: Thank you for those comments. Based on everything that I know about what is going on with this outbreak and the research that's being conducted, well as the genomic sequences that have been posted and the comparison with animals strains, the pattern that we're seeing is quite consistent with emergence from animal to human acquisition and adaptability or mutations that permit the virus to be easily spread between people. There's some emerging research about, you know, the virus itself is related to bat viruses, that's what the SARS virus and the MERS virus. But there was an intriguing report about pangolin sequencing -- an animal that is apparently a large part of the wildlife trade around the world, with 99 percent similarity. But what our scientists tell us is you actually need more like 99.9 percent similarity for us to understand origin. The animal origins and the circumstances of the emergence of this virus are really important to understand and it's one of the key questions that the global community wants to look into.

Schuchat: In terms of the question about gain of function research and laboratory issues. Very important for us as a scientific community to have practices that protect researchers and their laboratory workers as well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people. So I am closely involved in this response and everything that I've seen so far is very consistent with the animal to human spread that we've seen other zoonotic origin. 

Husseini: May I follow up on that -- just -- I mean, the two things don't necessarily preclude each other. That is, the Chinese lab could well have acquired the bat [virus]. It's one or two thousand miles away -- the caves where the bats are [from] that are allegedly the cause. So wouldn't -- the two things aren't mutually exclusive, are they?

Schuchat: Yeah, let me leave a comment. Information is critical and having the very best information available to those who -- to everyone, to be able to protect themselves, their families, their communities is essential. In the midst of new infections, it is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own. So as you mentioned, a laboratory in the center of what else is happening in that province -- I'm reminded of concerns we heard when I was in Sierra Leone in 2014 with the Ebola response. There was a concern that there was a hemorrhagic virus research center in Sierra Leone, and maybe that's where the virus had come from. It was a key rumor that had to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak. So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals to human. But your, your question, I heard.

Thanks to decensored.news for the video clip. A version of this was originally posted on Posthaven in 2020.