A new NBC News report on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – the laboratory where the coronavirus pandemic may have originated – is inconsistent and misleading, according to a thread of tweets from Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin.
“This report from NBC News about its field trip to Wuhan Institute of Virology has several flaws, but the most apparent is that it misrepresents what U.S. officials wrote in diplomatic cables in 2018,” Rogin began Monday afternoon.
The NBC report states that US officials observed several security issues in the lab. But according to Rogin, WIV scientists told officials about the problems in a January 2018 cable.
“Wang Yanyi, director of the WIV, told NBC reporters that U.S. officials visited in March 2018, two months after the first cable was written,” Rogin tweeted. “The truth is that they visited three times, both before and after the Jan. 2018 cable. Has U.S. officials made a full visit? Not likely… “
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Rogin went on with Wang’s doubts, pointing to zero in her assertion that biosafety was not discussed with U.S. officials, pointing out that they called the Americans essentially “factory people.” He also criticized NBC for reporting Wang’s claims “without a single pushback.”
The Post columnist also asked why NBC reporters generally have trouble touring the lab.
“What did they expect to find, a piece of paper they forgot to throw out that says ‘Coronavirus Origin Evidence’?” he asked. ‘It is absurd to think that all has probative value. But there’s more … The NBC report says so [Dr. Anthony] Fauci ‘discounted the idea that the virus had accidentally escaped from a lab.’ As you read the interview, Fauci said it does not matter if it was a lab incident (which is wrong), but not that he rules out the possibility. ‘
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Rogin admitted that WIV vice-director Dr. Yuan Zhiming reiterated that there is no evidence that the coronavirus was transmitted from animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market.
“In general, Chinese scientists can not be accused of tracing the Party line,” Rogin said. ‘They deviate from that under penalty of death. But American news organizations need to do better than present a walk in a lab and an interview with falsifications in it than what we’re talking about the virus. “
