"Political factors must not be allowed to interfere with the traceability of the virus"

"Mix politics with science, and you'll only get politics." Saya Fischer, a member of the World Health Organization's International Expert Group on Thetracement of the New Coronavirus and a Danish epidemiologist, repeatedly stressed in an interview with this reporter on her newly published book "Virus Detective: Tracing the Origin of the Pandemic" that "political factors cannot be allowed to interfere with the traceability of the virus."

At the beginning of last year, WHO sent an international expert team to Wuhan, Hubei Province, to form a joint expert group with Chinese experts to jointly carry out part of the global traceability of the new crown virus in China. Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist and professor at the University of Copenhagen, became a member of the international expert group and served as the foreign team leader of the epidemiology team. "Virus Detective: Tracing the Origin of the Pandemic" is Fischer's more detailed and objective record of the whole process of research in China. In the book, Fischer forcefully refutes false arguments such as "laboratory leakage theory" and "China non-cooperation theory" from his personal experience and scientific perspective, and also criticizes the behavior of individual Western media in distorting facts and politicizing the traceability work.

Virus Detective: Tracing the Origins of the Pandemic is a 15-chapter, 200-page book in Danish. Fischer said that the main purpose of writing this book is to share with the public the whole process and main research results of the first phase of traceability. "We've done a lot of work guided by science. The whole process is not mixed with any political elements. She stressed: "I hope to fully describe this process, without interruption and without any media distorting my words and intentions." ”

The book was recognized and recommended by many people, including the Danish medical community, and sold out within two weeks of its first edition. The reporter of this newspaper noted that one of the chapters of this book, titled "A New Media Reality", specifically talks about the coverage of the virus in the Western media, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, on the traceability of the virus.

Before the report on the origin of the virus was released, Fischer wrote, the Wall Street Journal rushed to publish several articles that "followed the usual lines of criticism of China from the beginning" and "carefully arranged and fabricated the lie that the WHO report did not answer key questions due to the lack of data.".

The New York Times deliberately distorted Fischer's original intentions, hyping up "China's refusal to hand over important data to the WHO." Fischer disclosed in the book that she stressed to the reporter of the newspaper that Chinese experts have made meticulous preparations and provided a large amount of information for the traceability of the virus, and the expert group has been carrying out traceability research based on the scientific spirit, open and transparent. Some of the different views from the Chinese side are only inevitable at the level of scientific research, and the final conclusion is the result of the joint efforts of all parties. Before the New York Times report was published, Fischer found that the newspaper intended to write a report on the "WHO-China conflict", and she did not think that it was a fair interpretation of the facts or the meaning she wanted to express, that is, asked the reporter not to quote her, but was ignored by the other side. After the report was published, Fischer and other experts spoke out on social media, criticizing the New York Times for taking the experts out of context and deliberately distorting them, and making it clear that the newspaper's description did not match their personal experiences.

In his book, Fischer details the process of visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences: "We had to go through metal detectors to detect, measure the temperature, deliver all our belongings... The Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has the world's largest P4 laboratory, which has absorbed the expert opinions of various countries in the design and construction process, has the most advanced equipment, and adopts the highest operating standards of the world's general biosecurity. It was built to French and American standards ... We don't see any sign of the shabby and gloomy 'bat lab' that some media outlets describe. Fischer participated in the design of the P3 laboratory of the Danish National Institute of Serum, and focused on the engineering, technology and safety procedures of the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Experts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology have made candid responses and explanations to the so-called "doubts" speculated by some people in full detail.

Fischer believes that there is no evidence to support the unprofessional portrayal of the Wuhan laboratory by individual Western media, and there have been no suspicious cases among the laboratory personnel. The Joint China-WHO Study on the Traceability of COVID-19 concluded that laboratory leaks are "highly unlikely", a conclusion that represents the unanimous view of all experts. Fischer stressed that she still stands by this scientific judgment.

"Tracing the origin of the virus is a serious scientific exercise that can help people better understand the origin and spread of the pandemic and prevent similar tragedies from repeating themselves." Fischer stressed that he hopes to continue to promote the second phase of work with a scientific attitude on the basis of the joint research report, "political factors will only interfere with and distort the traceability work and hinder scientists from solving scientific mysteries."

(Brussels, January 19, 2019)

Author: Zhang Penghui, reporter of this newspaper

Source: People's Daily