Interesting article in The Times this evening:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-china-bars-safety-experts-from-wuhan-lab-brbm9rwtm
"China prevented French experts from overseeing safety at its first high-security virus laboratory, which is now facing claims that it was the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, according to French officials.
The laboratory in the city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 outbreak began last year, was the first in China to have a biosafety level 4 (BSL 4) rating, which is reserved for institutions working with potentially fatal agents. It was conducting research into coronaviruses, some derived from bats, from which the pathogen is thought to have originated.
The facility opened in 2015 after being built in partnership with France, which was meant to supply the technical expertise with 50 high-level French researchers due to work there between 2017 and 2022. They did not do so as the Chinese came to dominate the arrangements, according to the officials.
French specialists have knowledge in building and running BSL 4 laboratories, which were described by a senior civil servant in Paris as a “bacteriological atomic bomb”. But French firms got only minor roles in the building of the laboratory, according to Le Figaro and France Inter, the state broadcaster.
France Inter said that Technip, the French company supposed to certify that the building complied with safety standards, refused to do so after pulling out of the project in 2015. In the same year Alain Mérieux, the French pharmaceutical tycoon, resigned from the joint chairmanship of the committee heading the project. The French government has refused to say whether the 50 French researchers meant to move to Wuhan were blocked by the Chinese authorities or whether Paris failed to provide the funding.
US diplomats reportedly questioned the facility’s safety procedures, and intelligence suggested that a failure to respect safety protocols there could have allowed the virus to escape during research into diseased bats. Most experts agree the virus appears to have a natural origin, passing from bats to a mammal, and on to humans."
Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum