Our local paper, the South China Morning Post feels bold enough to carry a story on the China-side obstruction in the early days of the coronavirus. A super-sensitive item on the mainland. /Snip:
In late January 2020, as a new virus infected hundreds of people each day in the Chinese city of Wuhan, scientists at the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas urgently sought access to the pathogen to start their own research.
They turned to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), whose scientists they had helped to train, hoping they could execute a swift “material transfer agreement” to get the coronavirus to their labs.
The US government-affiliated lab would wait days as a WIV scientist overseeing the transfer reported little progress in a process that appeared stymied by a need for Chinese government approval, emails obtained by a freedom of information request to the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) show.
The exchange highlights challenges in international pathogen sharing and points to China’s reluctance to share these materials in the critical early days of the pandemic, experts briefed on the documents said. For the researchers in Texas, it meant lost time. [Read on…]
