China Suspends Access to Western Scientists Searching for COVID Origins

Western scientists researching the origins of the coronavirus pandemic had their access to an international database suspended due to a complaint from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that they scooped data from a Chinese study.

The scientists—from the U.S., U.K., Canada and France—on Monday published a paper which said analysis of data from the start of the pandemic leant itself to the theory that COVID-19 emerged from a live animal in a wet market in Wuhan, a theory China supports.

The data, which itself caused controversy after being kept from the international community for three years, mysteriously disappeared from the database shortly after being uploaded in January this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The Chinese CDC contends researchers had removed the data to update their own paper.

The latest controversy only adds to the mystery over the origins of the pandemic, the search for which has been frustrated by obfuscation by China, Western officials have previously said. It comes as a growing number of U.S. intelligence agencies and medical experts are entertaining the possibility that the virus spread into the human population as a result of a lab leak.

Cases of COVID-19 infection first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, before spreading throughout the world. The virus has caused the deaths of more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. alone, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The prevailing opinion among intelligence analysts and scientists remains that COVID-19 spread into the human population by jumping the species barrier from livestock in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, in Wuhan.

However, FBI director Christopher Wray went on record in late February saying that the agency had "for quite some time" believed that a leak from a laboratory mishap was the most likely origin of the virus. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been implicated as the source of the virus.

Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical officer to the U.S. president, has said he was keeping "an open mind" about the origins of the virus. The Chinese government has repeatedly denied claims of a lab leak.

While studies to date had largely relied on data of the virus when it was already in human circulation, the unpublished data at the center of the latest dispute originated from environmental samples collected at the wet market from animals.

Puzzlingly, according to the Western scientists, Chinese researchers have drawn the conclusion that the market was a site of amplification for an already widespread epidemic, suggesting against the wet market theory. By contrast, the Western scientists found the "critical" information showed the market was "likely where spillover [into the human population] occurred and sustained human-to-human transmission was established."

They found evidence in the data of "multiple" animal species being co-located with COVID-positive samples that was consistent with the virus being present "due to animal infections," they wrote in a lengthy introduction to their paper.

Despite seemingly supporting the Chinese government's preferred theory, the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) on Tuesday informed the scientists that their access to the database had been temporarily suspended following a complaint from the Chinese CDC.

This, it said, was because the Western scientists had scooped the data—i.e. published it before the originator had a chance to—which amounted to a breach of its terms of use. "We are well aware of these terms of use, have not breached them, and have no intention of breaching them," the researchers wrote.

In a statement, GISAID said Chinese researchers had submitted a first draft of their analysis for peer review prior to publication in a scientific journal. At the same time, the Western scientists had downloaded "an incomplete portion of these data" which they then used in their published report "in direct contravention of the terms they agreed to" and "despite knowledge that the data generators are undergoing peer review assessment of their own publication."

However, the researchers said they had downloaded data relating to genetic sequences from animals, not humans, which the Chinese CDC had not identified in the pre-publication draft. They said they contacted the author of the draft on March 9, who agreed they could conduct a separate analysis—but after telling them of the animal samples, on March 11, the data was made unavailable.

"Data contributors frequently update their records with the help of GISAID's data curation team. When this occurs, released records will become temporarily invisible," GISAID said, adding it "does not, on its own accord, unrelease data. This decision rests solely with data contributors."

On March 14, the researchers said they met with WHO and Chinese CDC representatives as "one of several efforts to establish a collaborative relationship," but said the Chinese CDC declined the offer.

Newsweek attempted to contact the Chinese CDC for comment on Wednesday, but no email address was available and the phone number provided did not appear to be registered.

The researchers said they "respect" the right of Chinese CDC colleagues to publish first and "do not plan to submit a paper that would compete with their manuscript," but noted that the data had first been uploaded in June 2022 and only made publicly available in January.

Given that the samples were collected three years prior, they argued, and "given their importance to understanding the origin of the pandemic, we feel this is an unreasonable amount of time to have passed."

In a statement to Newsweek, a GISAID spokesperson said the decision to suspend access had become a "fait accompli" after the Western researchers did not respond to a March 13 query from the database.

"Given the totality of circumstances then known: (1) a publication disclosing (unreviewed) findings from the data to the general public (as opposed to only relevant public health authorities or other registered GISAID users); and (2) a majority of this publication's authors received GISAID's request for feedback and assistance but chose not to respond, GISAID was left with no other choice but to temporarily suspend these authors' access credentials," they said.

The spokesperson said the authors responded only after GISAID published its March 21 statement, after which it had lifted the suspension as a "show of goodwill" and that was not "determinative or otherwise indicative of the conclusion" of their inquiry into the matter. "The review is not complete," they added.

On Friday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called out Chinese officials for withholding the data for such a long period of time, urging them to share the data with the U.N. agency.

"These data could have—and should have—been shared three years ago," he said. "We continue to call on China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results. Understanding how the pandemic began remains both a moral and scientific imperative."

Newsweek contacted the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a response via email on Wednesday.

Update 03/24/23, 4:05 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from a GISAID spokesperson.