The Times publishes a question-and-answer format interview with Peter Daszak, identified by the Times as a member of "A team of experts selected by the World Health Organization to investigate the origins of the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic." The print Times says, "A specialist in animal diseases and their spread to humans, Dr. Daszak has worked with the Wuhan Virology Institute."
"Worked with" seems quite a vague way of putting it, especially given the speculation (extensively explored in this New York magazine article) that the Wuhan Virology Institute was somehow responsible for the outbreak via a leak or accident. The Times doesn't appear to have asked about that possibility, at least according to the question-and-answers published in the newspaper. A U.S. State Department "fact sheet" issued last month reported that the Wuhan Institute of Virology "has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017." Was Daszak aware of that work? The Times does not appear to have asked.
A business section article in today's Times reports:
China was, and remains, an authoritarian country under Communist Party rule. But the nature of its authoritarianism has become much harsher under Xi Jinping, the party's top leader since late 2012. Mr. Sun's case exemplifies the country's drastic turn from a nation striving for economic and social, if not political, liberalization to one increasingly operating in an ideological straitjacket.
Mr. Xi has steadily undermined China's civil society — the businesspeople, lawyers, civic groups and many others who make up the fabric of a nation's daily life. People in many countries take civil society for granted. In China, where the Communist Party had sought to fill all roles, civil society was budding in 2003.
Since Mr. Xi came to command, it has been virtually wiped out. Journalists with an independent bent have been silenced. Lawyers are jailed. Officials, even retired ones, know to keep their mouth shut. Businesspeople tread carefully to avoid crossing the government.
It would have been nice if the Times had asked Daszak how he thought about such questions in connection with his work "with the Wuhan Virology Institute," or in investigating the outbreak.