The problem with the lab-leak hypotheses is that is has no basis other than the correlation-causation fallacy. An advanced virology lab just happened to be in the place the pandemic originated because scientists identified it as a hotspot where a pandemic could start.
Gain of function research is a vital tool in preventing pandemics. Moratoriums are pretty much universally opposed by virologists and are already regulated under DURC/DUCG (which both require unaffiliated oversight from the public). Influenza for example is able to be researched without having to infect human subjects because we used GoF to make lab strains infect rabbits.
The point of the lab-leak hypothesis is not to find the exact historical truth of what actually happened. We probably can never find out for sure, and for political reasons it would be difficult to pin it on one culprit.
The question is only: Could it have happened this way? Is it plausible? If so, then we need to increase our security measures.
I think it is very plausible. There have been SARS lab leaks before, there were local attempts at cover up, and so on. There is no evidence for a lab leak, but it could have happened, and that is enough.
How do we tighten the security measures? One way would be to ban gain of function research. I'm not an expert, so if you say we need this research, we have to find a way to do it more safely. Maybe we can perform the research with 100% transparency. Complete surveillance of the lab, only joint multi-national labs allowed, frequent external audits, intense medical observation of the researchers, .... I'm sure experts can come up with useful precautions. The thing is there are likely precautions that were possible but considered too cumbersome or expensive. But in the light of a global pandemic and the plausibility that it may have been a lab leak, it is time to reevaluate the cost-benefit analysis.
(And of course, the zoonosis hypothesis is also plausible, and we have to do something about it... and think about deforestation, urban growth, wet markets, and so on.)
The whole reason they were working with chimeras is that attempts to culture the virus for gain of function research failed. Using the unproven lab leak origin theory to put a stop to research that wasn't actually being done is not reasonable or logical.
That is a really uncharitable reading of what I said. I don't know the details of what they were researching, I am not an expert. I'm just saying, the scenario that it could have been a lab leak, or that there could be a lab leak in future, should be taken more seriously. I don't know if they did GOF experiments (and I'm sure the pop-sci image of monkeys in cages a few feet apart is probably wrong). But we should think of regulating more strictly whatever they did (or didn't) do that could cause such an outbreak.
There are multiple different biosafety levels for labs. All else being equal, a leak is more likely from a BSL-2 facility than a BSL-4 facility. Perhaps all such research should be limited to BSL-4?
Some amount of coronavirus research is very common in most BSL-4 labs. Coronaviruses are common, and are of particular interest to China in that region due to what happened with SARS only a decade prior.
Yes, as mike_d explained, those specific bat coronaviruses occur in Wuhan, of course it makes sense to build a lab there, and, just as portrayed in Contagion, that the virus would jump over there. Correlation-causation fallacy.
The caves where covid is supposed to have originated are over a thousand kilometers from Wuhan, next to the Himalayan border. What a crazy coincidence that the bat traveled halfway across China without infecting anyone before it finally landed right across the street from the Wuhan Coronavirus Research Lab.
COVID-19 presents as being similar to the flu and at least at first mostly killed older people with preexisting conditions. It is entirely possible that SARS-CoV2 had been rampaging across the countryside for some time before reaching Wuhan and being detected there. HIV started spreading in West Africa but was only detected years later in LA and NYC after traveling through multiple island locations.
I didn’t know that and would need to see a source. Wuhan is a major city so I just don’t know how many bats (of that specific type) live there. Also heard similar to the below comment that it was quite far away. Also seems they had just moved the entire lab to a different location. Jamie Metzl does a 5 hour podcast with Lex Fridman about it. I find his case very compelling as a layman. Not that it is definitely a lab leak, but that its obviously possible and baffling to dismiss as a real possibility.
Is there stronger evidence than correlation==causation to point to the market instead? I think that's what sends most people down the conspiracy kick. You have two seemingly reasonable explanations for a thing, yet one is considered ridiculous.
For SARS-1 there was no lab in Guangdong and still a coronavirus that is found in bats 700 miles away wound up jumping to people in a dense urban center.
If you can explain how SARS-1 happened without a lab -- and you MUST be able to do this at the end of the day, because it really did happen -- then you can explain how SARS-2 happened and the lab was just a coincidence.
> The problem with the lab-leak hypotheses is that is has no basis other than the correlation-causation fallacy. An advanced virology lab just happened to be in the place the pandemic originated because scientists identified it as a hotspot where a pandemic could start.
It's always a "kill the messenger" attitude. South Africa and the UK got punished with demonization and travel bans for doing the correct thing and sequencing a lot of positive samples to identify variants. China was also punished in a similar way, but at least there a bit of that punishment is warranted given how utterly intransparent China was and still is and how local cadres tried to hide the outbreak in the first place.
Once the pandemic is under control, humanity as a whole will have to establish a framework on pandemics that prevents "perverse incentives" aka hiding suspicious events, manipulating data, threatening researchers or not sequencing variants.
> An advanced virology lab just happened to be in the place the pandemic originated because scientists identified it as a hotspot where a pandemic could start.
Maybe because there was a virology lab they identified the disease there first?
They proposed to darpa to modify bat coronaviruses with a new furin cleavage site, darpa denied it for being too dangerous, and 2 years later we have a bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage site from a pangolin inserted with no genetic evidence of natural mutation.
“Let’s weld a horn on a horse and make unicorns. No, too dangerous.” Two years later we see unicorns running around the same lab that proposed it.
It happened to be 600 to 1000 miles from where the bats carrying such viruses are found. The closest bat virus to Sars Cov 2 was found in Laos 1000 or so miles away and samples were shipped to the Wuhan lab.
there is only one reason the media rejected the lab-leak hypothesis - it was forwarded by Trump
since then, Biden's own security advisor has briefed him on the relevant proof (which has remained the same), but it was not broadly covered by the media
furthermore, the wet-market hypothesis was debunked in peer-reviewed science (and never had reasonable support from the start)
at this point there is literally no credible support for the idea that the lab leak data is incorrect
> there is only one reason the media rejected the lab-leak hypothesis - it was forwarded by Trump
Nonsense. There is media outside the US, and no one really cared about that.
The problem has been that literally no one in charge had any interest to investigate. Obviously not China, but the US was involved in the gain of function research in Wuhan too; France/EU knew about the problems there.
And rightfully so, the first few weeks of media coverage were focused on other things than pointing fingers. Trump talking about blame, was seen as a distraction from the catastrophic handling of the pandemic by the administration - and there was clear evidence for that.
I think we will never know the origin of this virus, but we can prevent a possible lab leak in the future, outlaw gain of function research and internationally enforce lab safety standards on the highest political level.
Regardless of causation/correlation, that lab in Wuhan could have been the source of this pandemic, which killed 5.5 million so far and crippled the world economy for 2 years and counting: The french withdrew collaboration, because the lab wasn't meeting standards for the proposed risky research, and the exact gain of function seen in SARS2 was proposed to be researched there.
The possibility of a lab leak should not have existed in the first place. We can prevent a next pandemic of lab origin, now.
When a highly radioactive particle is found outside of a nuclear facility, you don't find nuclear physicists making ridiculous statements about "correlation is not causation" and bending all their efforts to find any other solution than what is plainly obvious.
This is not a correlation/causation fallacy at all. It is a simple application of occam's razor. The "wet market" hypothesis has only ever been a convenient distraction.
Gain of function research is a vital tool in preventing pandemics. Moratoriums are pretty much universally opposed by virologists and are already regulated under DURC/DUCG (which both require unaffiliated oversight from the public). Influenza for example is able to be researched without having to infect human subjects because we used GoF to make lab strains infect rabbits.