A24 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 , 2021
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]T
OO MANY questions are still
unanswered about the origins of
the pandemic. Though China’s
doors remain closed, there are
significant and promising avenues for
investigation in the United States.
The two major hypotheses for the
virus origins are zoonotic spillover, from
an animal to human perhaps with an
intermediate host, or that it leaked or
escaped from a laboratory accident in
Wuhan. The Wuhan Institute of Virology
(WIV) is one of the world’s major centers
of study of bat coronaviruses, and was
developing genetically modified variants
able to infect human lung cells.
Zoonotic spillover is a plausible expla-
nation based on historical experience,
and scientists should pursue it vigorous-
ly. But similar efforts must be made to
discover whether a laboratory release or
infection led to the pandemic. Peter
Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alli-
ance, a nonprofit based in New York,
organized a five-year research program
funded by the U.S. National Institutes of
Health to study bat coronaviruses and
potential spillover risk to people, with
significant participation by the WIV and
its scientist, Shi Zhengli. The govern-ment of China, Ms. Shi and Mr. Daszak all
insist the laboratory could not be the
source of the pandemic strain.
Mr. Daszak has been particularly aggres-
sive in promoting the zoonotic spillover
hypothesis and attacking the laboratory
leak as a “conspiracy theory.”
Last week, it was disclosed that the
EcoHealth Alliance in August filed a
report on its research in 2018-2019 — the
report was two years late. This just
happens to be the two-year period of the
pandemic and intense debate about the
virus origins. No reason has been given.
Mr. Daszak did not respond to our query.
The tardy report describes experiments,
approved in advance by the NIH, to test
the infectivity of the genetically manipu-
lated viruses on mice with cells resem-
bling those of the human respiratory
system. The manipulations made the
viruses more lethal to the mice. Although
the NIH continues to insist this did not
fit the definition of “gain of function”
research, and could not have led to the
pandemic strain, it certainly should have
met the U.S. government’s own require-
ments for stricter oversight.
Still, much is unknown. There is no
direct evidence of zoonotic spillover, norof a laboratory leak.
But unanswered questions keep
emerging about Mr. Daszak and the
WIV. He was at the center of public
debate over virus origins, the only
American appointed to the joint World
Health Organization-China mission.
Why did he not disclose his 2018 propos-
al to the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency for research on bat
coronaviruses with the WIV and others,
which called for engineering a modifica-
tion onto spike proteins of chimeric
viruses t hat would make them infect
human cells in the way the pandemic
strain did? What does he know about
the databases of viruses that WIV took
offline in 2019 and never brought back?
Does he know what research the WIV
may have done on its own, during or
after their collaboration? What was
being done at WIV in the months before
the pandemic?
Mr. Daszak must answer these ques-
tions before Congress. His grants were
federal funds, and it is entirely appropri-
ate for Congress to insist on accountabili-
ty and transparency. He might also help
the world understand what really hap-
pened in Wuhan.Question Mr. Daszak
He might know what really happened in Wuhan.
I
F THERE is one thing that former
president Donald Trump has taught
us, it ’s how toxic to the system it is to
question the legitimacy of election
results. Mr. Trump continues to lie about
his resounding loss in 2020 and insist
that other Republicans accept the lie,
too. In the Virginia gubernatorial race,
Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nomi-
nee, has indulged Mr. Trump’s false-
hoods while seeking not to embrace
them so wholeheartedly as to alienate
suburban voters who don’t buy them.
Mr. Youngkin, a f resh face in politics, had
the opportunity to tell voters frankly
that the system worked in 2020. He
chose not to.
That made it all the more disappoint-
ing to hear Mr. Youngkin’s Democratic
opponent, Terry McAuliffe, fanning the
flames of suspicion over the weekend
among his supporters. Campaigning
with Stacey Abrams, who lost a race for
governor of Georgia in 2018, Mr. McAu-liffe said Ms. Abrams “would be the
governor of Georgia today” had not the
state “disenfranchised 1.4 million Geor-
gia voters before the election.
“That’s what happened to Stacey
Abrams,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “They took
the votes away.”
Unlike Mr. Trump’s wild lies about
millions of fraudulent votes, there ’s
some basis for Mr. McAuliffe’s state-
ment. He was referring to the number of
people purged from the voting rolls, for
various reasons, between 2012 and 2018;
in the year before the election, nearly
700,000 were purged, more Democrats
than Republicans; and the person in
charge of the operation was Brian
Kemp, who was both secretary of state
and Ms. Abrams’s opponent in the race
for governor.
But as The Post’s Fact Checker has
written, many were purged from the
rolls for entirely legitimate reasons
(such as they were dead). The turnout in2018 was higher than in any previous
midterm. There is no way to know
whether Ms. Abrams would have won if
Georgia’s registration laws and practices
had been different.
Election expert Richard L. Hasen told
the Fact Checker in 2019 that he knew of
no evidence to prove that Ms. Abrams
would have been elected had the rolls
not been purged, but added: “That seems
to me to be beside the point: The
question is whether Georgia had a good
reas on to put these suppressive mea-
sures in place, and for the most part, the
state did not have good reasons.” Which
points to the right response, and that is
the route Ms. Abrams for the most part
has been following: Push for laws and
practices that encourage voting, rather
than suppressing it.
Mr. McAuliffe would do well to stick to
that effort, avoiding unprovable allega-
tions that will contribute to the corro-
sion of trust.Harming trust in elections
Mr. McAuliffe should not fan the flames of voter suspicion.
The Oct. 20 Metro article on the prob-
lem du jour for Metro, “Rail service cuts
may endanger fragile recovery, officials
fear,” quoted a person as hoping that
Metro will soon get back to normal. That’s
getting the situation backward; normal
for Metro is a perpetual state of snafus.
For decades, Metro has lurched from
one foul-up to the next, starting with
stranding tens of thousands of people on
the National Mall after the bicentennial
celebration and never learning or im-
proving from its continuing mistakes. To
fix Metro would require the region to do
six impossible things before breakfast,
including gaining the ability to fire peo-
ple for incompetence, indifference and
dishonesty; miraculously resolving the
differences between urban and suburban
interests; and recognizing the capacity
limitations of the entire Metro system.
The region should recognize that we
have to deal with the flawed transit
system that we are stuck with rather than
the fantasy system that we would like to
have, and get on with actively promoting
other transportation alternatives.
Edward Portner, Silver SpringMetro goes back to normal
As an admirer of former secretary of
state Colin L. Powell, a regular reader of
Charles Lane’s column, a World War II vet,
a former prisoner of war and someone
who started his Army service at Fort
Benning’s infantry center, I would like to
endorse Mr. Lane’s proposal in his Oct. 20
Wednesday Opinion column, “In honor of
a complicated patriot, create Fort Powell,”
to rename Fort Benning in Gen. Powell ’s
honor. However, name it Fort Colin Pow-
ell, to distinguish it from the many other
long-standing Powell names on such
things as mountains, train stations and
towns across the United States.
Patrick F. Morris, BethesdaCharles Lane wrote an excellent
column on the death of former secretary
of state Colin L. Powell. Mr. Lane provided
a nuanced view that Gen. Powell had of
his predecessor in Thomas Jefferson.
Though Gen. Powell certainly acknowl-
edged that Jefferson had betrayed his own
words in our Declaration of Independ-
ence that “all men are created equal” by
having enslaved more than 600 people,
Gen. Powell said that Jefferson “left us so
very, very much.”
As Mr. Lane wrote, “Powell, in short,
had considered Jefferson in full and
reached the conclusion that this
U.S. Founder’s achievements were wor-
thy of celebration even if his transgres-
sions were unpardonable.” Why is that a
difficult conclusion to reach? Every hu-
man being is fallible. Indeed, is it not in
our collective self-interest to be forgiving?
Perfection — or anything close to that — is
simply not possible for any human.
L et the Jefferson statue stay in the New
York City Council chambers, and let’s
change the name of Fort Benning to Fort
Powell soon.
Marc Chafetz, WashingtonGet behind Fort Colin Powell
W hether you were born in West Vir-
ginia or got here as fast as you could, we all
soon learn that poverty, hung er and de-
spair can be as much a p art of our land-
scape as mountains and rivers.
In America’s Almost Heaven, why is this
so? An even better question would be, why
does it persist?
Though we may never agree on the
causes of poverty, we will most certainly be
able to mark this moment in our nation’s
histo ry as either our greatest turning
point for health, well-being and economic
justice or our costliest missed opportunity.
We clearly have the means to make
lasting progress against poverty with the
Build Back Better Act and its provisions
for affordable housing, paid leave and an
enhanced child tax credit. Yet proposed
cuts and arbitrary limitations stand to
diminish its impact, reversing the prog-
ress already made in cutting child poverty
in half.
Rather than being reminded of his pro-
found influence in this process, we would
do well to remind Sen. Joe Manchin III
(D-W.Va.) that it is entirely within his
power to secure prosperity, securi ty and
hope in West Virginia and across the
nation through a robust Build Back Better
Act.
Joanna DiStefano,
Morgantown, W.Va.Mr. Manchin can help W.Va.
Michael Gerson’s Oct. 19 Tuesday Opin-
ion column, “The state laboratory of idioc-
racy strikes again,” did not highlight the
disservice done to the Black community
or any other minority group affected by
White history. I w onder about how this
will manipulate the perceptions of minor-
ities in the eyes of students. The misguid-
ed stereotypes and assumptions perpetu-
ated by these curriculum restrictions will
likely prevent Black Americans from ex-
pressing themselves safely.
It’s plausible to assume that continued
miseducation over generations could cre-
ate a sense of false comfort for Black
Americans. Without proper access to hi s-
tory, minorities might begin to forget the
oppression they have faced and the injus-
tices they are currently dealing with.
Lacking this vital historical education
only serves to continue the long-standing
issue of misinformation in modern gener-
ations.
The problems are only the start of the
issues that could begin to plague the
American education system.
Riley Kilcarr, SpringfieldA plague on education
ABCDE
FREDERICK J. RYAN JR., Publisher and Chief Executive OfficerABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
EDITORIALST
WO MONTHS after paying
$3 million to settle a lawsuit
filed by the family of a woman
killed by police in 2016, Balti-
more County has agreed to pay
$6.5 million to the family of a man
fatally shot in 2019 after his mother
called 911 worried that he was driving
drunk and had threatened suicide. The
county may face another big payout in a
lawsuit brought by the family of a man
a federal judge has said posed no
threat, but was shot to death by police.
Police should change their training to
better protect themselves and the citi-
zens they are sworn to help — but also
to save taxpayer money.
Central to these cases, and to many
similar tragedies beyond Baltimore
County, is the failure to train officers to
deal with people who are experiencing
a mental crisis.
Eric Sopp was a 48-year-old former
teacher who had battled alcoholism
and on the night of Nov. 26, 2019, was
on a drinking binge. His mother called
911, worried that he was driving drunk
and might hurt someone. She told the
dispatcher he had threatened suicide.
Officer Gregory A. Page pulled Sopp
over, approached with his gun drawn,
and yelled commands to put his hands
on the dash and turn the car off. Sopp
refused and said he was getting out of
the car, and when he exited the car
Officer Page fired at least eight times.
Sopp was unarmed. Local prosecutors
decided the officer’s actions were justi-
fied, and Officer Page has remained on
duty.
Tellingly, the body-cam video of the
incident is in the curriculum developed
by the Police Executive Research Forum
to train officers on how to deal with
situations of people in crisis in hopes of
reducing the number of police shoot-
ings. It’s an example of what not to do.
The 911 operator had relayed that Sopp
was a person in crisis, but the officer
seemed not to assess the risk or realize
this was a person in need of help and
not a threat. Approaching the car with
his gun drawn and barking commands
escalated the situation, heightening the
anxiety of someone already in distress.
Surely there were alternatives to shoot-
ing an unarmed man exiting his car.
“When I called 911,” his mother told
The Post’s Tom Jackman, “I thought hewould receive help. Instead it cost him
his life.” A similar theme was sounded
by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander
when she refused to dismiss the lawsuit
brought by the family of Jeffrey Gene
Evans, who was fatally shot by Balti-
more County police in 2015 after his
girlfriend called to report he had taken
a large number of pills. “They shot and
killed a man who needed [their] help,”
she wrote.The lawyer for Sopp’s family, which
includes two children left behind, said
the hope is that the county will now
take action to prevent future unneces-
sary shootings. Good that Baltimore
County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt has
announced an expansion of the mobile
crisis team that handles behavioral
health related calls for service and has
promised improvements in how offi-
cers are trained.Police training reforms are needed
After another avoidable shooting, s omething must change.
PETER HERMANN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt.News pages: Editorial and opinion pages:
SALLY BUZBEE FRED HIATT
Executive Editor Editorial Page Editor
CAMERON BARR RUTH MARCUS
Managing Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor
TRACY GRANT KAREN TUMULTY
Managing Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor
KAT DOWNS MULDER JO-ANN ARMAO
Managing Editor Associate Editorial Page Editor
KRISSAH THOMPSON
Managing Editor
SCOTT VANCE
Deputy Managing Editor
BARBARA VOBEJDA
Deputy Managing EditorVice Presidents:
JAMES W. COLEY JR.........................................................Production
L. WAYNE CONNELL............................................Human Resources
KATE M. DAVEY.....................................................Revenue Strategy
ELIZABETH H. DIAZ....................Audience Development & Insights
GREGG J. FERNANDES..........................Customer Care & Logistics
SHANI GEORGE......................................................Communications
STEPHEN P. GIBSON.....................................Finance & Operations
SCOT GILLESPIE...........................................................................Arc
KRISTINE CORATTI KELLY.....................Communications & Events
JOHN B. KENNEDY...................................General Counsel & Labor
SHAILESH PRAKASH....Digital Product Development & Engineering
MICHAEL A. RIBERO....................................................Subscriptions
JOY ROBINS..............................................................Client SolutionsThe Washington Post
1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-6000their deployed hypersonic missiles while
we are still in the development and test
stage. It is hopelessly naive to suggest that
they would negotiate away their current
advantage. If only it were that easy.
The recent report of yet another Chi-
nese test should serve as a wake-up call.
Or the latest in a series of wake-up calls.
And to those who fear a new arms race, it ’s
too late; we are already in one.
Mark Lewis, Arlington
The writer is executive director of the
Emerging Technologies Institute at the
National Defense Industrial Association.Regarding the Oct. 21 editorial “Slow
down”:
China and Russia make no secret of
their aggressive pursuit of hypersonic
weapons, capable of maneuvering flight
in excess of a mile per second. Hypersonic
systems are difficult to see and track, let
alone stop, and represent a next obvious
step in military technology, especially as
other nations develop countermeasures
to our radar-evading stealth systems.
These foreign developments therefore
pose a serious threat to our defense
posture, as well as our ability to defend
key allies.
Hypersonics is a field we pioneered,
but decades of inconsistent funding, lack
of follow-through and an attachment to
lega cy systems hindered our progress.
Our competitors have taken advantage of
our indecision, leveraging work that, in
many cases, they stole from under our
noses. China and Russia now brag aboutA serious threat to defense
DRAWING BOARD DAVE GRANLUNDB Y DAVE GRANLUND