11 ms·

This is a really polarizing theory for a lot of folks, but it's completely precedented. SARS-CoV-1 leaked out of [edit](three separate labs (one in China, one i

This is a really polarizing theory for a lot of folks, but it's completely precedented. SARS-CoV-1 leaked out of [edit](three separate labs (one in China, one in Singapore and one in Taiwan)) in the early 2000s - and these leaks were acknowledged by their respective governments, including the PRC. [1] And a whole bunch of other diseases from a whole bunch of other labs over like a hundred years. [2] It could have happened. I'm not sure it did, but it certainly could have. This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

nicoburns 5y ago
> This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such. I agree. I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of the early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked on purpose, which strays well into conspiracy theory territory.
- dnautics 5y ago
  You could say that but, based on some revealed communications it also feels (we can never truly know what was in their heads) like there was a concerted effort by denouncers of the lab leak theory to conflate lab leaks with purposeful leaks to discredit the lab leak theory.
- timr 5y ago
  > I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of the early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked on purpose, which strays well into conspiracy theory territory. Maybe, but the early communication allowed for no dissent: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife > Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus. That's not ambiguous language. Pretty much a blatant slamming of the door on all non-natural theories of origin. Anything else was labeled "conspiracy" at a very early stage.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I remember when it was racist to say it came from China and to wear a mask.
    - yebyen 5y ago
      When it was racist to wear a mask? Have to admit that's a new one for me.
      - johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago
        Not necessrily mask, but defenitely people brought of the question of "cleanliness", which might be very close to hand washing and mask wearing: https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21126758/coronavirus-xenophobia-racism-china-asians https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21126758/coronavirus-xenophobia...
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      There are still plenty of people who will accuse you of sinophobia if you dare acknowledge the ongoing genocide happening in China.
  - tim333 5y ago
    A lot of what you mentioned was written by Peter Daszak who is one of the main suspects in terms of lab involvement in the origins. The closest wild strain to covid was found in Laos and there is no wildlife trade to Wuhan but Daszak's organisation seems to have been collecting samples there and shipping them to the Wuhan lab. And then when people say "what samples, lets see" you get stonewalling. Before having too much of a go at the Chinese we should subpoena and get the records from that lot (based in NY).
- throwawaychina 5y ago
- tonguez 5y ago
  Your italics seem to be indicating an “appeal to incredulity”. But you don’t present any actual logical argument for why anyone should not believe it was leaked intentionally.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  Plenty of people seem to still believe it was leaked on purpose. I don't understand why. It's right up there with the flat earth and chemtrails on the scale of to what end would they do that, and why wouldn't they do something more effective?
axlee 5y ago
The theory was not "crackpot", but it was asserted with 0 evidence back then. The evidence is judged, not the theory itself.
- hartator 5y ago
  > it was asserted with 0 evidence back then The bat theory was asserted with way more force at the time with even less evidence.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    I think you mean wet market theory. This is true, but at least there was a "high bayesian prior" due to that being how it happened in the past. Nonetheless the wet market proponents were irresponsibly aggressive in their forcefulness.
    - snowgrove 5y ago
      As other commenters mentioned there was a “high Bayesian prior” for lab leaks, too.
      - matthewdgreen 5y ago
        All of the previous lab leaks were of known viruses that had previously spilled over into humans via natural processes, then were collected and later leaked out (again). I'm not aware of any truly novel viruses that spilled into humans through a lab leak. Are there any examples?
        dnautics 5y ago
        What's your threshold for novelness? We can't truly know just how novel covid-19 is; we don't have sequences from the database of coronaviruses, and even if we did it might have leaked right after it was collected, without having been sequenced yet.
        5y ago
soperj 5y ago
The reasons it was are very obvious, when you had Donald Trump consistently making it a political issue to further his re-election.
- nxmnxm99 5y ago
  And the other side calling anyone suggesting a lab leak a right wing conspiracy nut wasn't politicizing it?
- sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
  tbh it went both ways
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Particularly serious is trying to confuse a possible lab accident with a deliberate weaponization of a virus.
- twofornone 5y ago
  Was Trump the one making it political? Or were his opponents making it political by using it as a cheap excuse to accuse him of racism/xenophobia, as they did when he suggested a travel ban in March while democratic senators were explicitly encouraging citizens to visit their local chinatowns?
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    The amount of retconning that's being attempted to shore up how dismal of a response Trump's administration had to Covid is something to behold. People were calling trump racist/xenophobic because he was calling it the china virus and the kung flu in the face of a huge rise in attacks on AAPI americans and still lying about his travel ban and about Pelosi visiting Chinatown.. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-claims-about-pelosi-and-chinatown/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-claims-about-... https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel-restrictions/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel...
  - tiahura 5y ago
bsimpson 5y ago
I hadn't realized how dogmatic so many people are about "believe science" until the pandemic. It's mildly terrifying. It also spills over into other domains. If people feel they aren't allowed to be curious or skeptical about the origins of CoV2, how are they going to feel when you tell them manmade global warming is "settled science"? Curiosity is what fuels life. It's not healthy for us or for our discourse to suppress it.
- adventured 5y ago
  It's of course not: believe science. It's: obey authority. That's what they really mean when they say it. It's philosophically very wide, it represents a much broader spectrum for the person using it than just science. What you're witnessing is a coward's soul laid bare, when you witness someone shut down discussion with bumper sticker regurgitations. When you read the history of any given authoritarian regime of more recent times, there is a large fraction of the general population that tremendously assists the monsters into coming to power, through endless acquiescing. They're the gray moralists, the fence sitters: who am I to have a brain, who am I to have an opinion, little me, who am I to do anything, who am I to hold an opinion separate from such and such important person, I do what I'm told when I'm told without asking questions. They're zombies and they're terrifying to observe in action.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    Except it’s not the introspective people that have nuanced opinions driving this. Right now (on the right and the left) it is being driven by people with absolutist opinions based on contempt for authority and facts.
  - AYBABTME 5y ago
    I think calling them cowards is wrong. These people probably are just as spread out on the anti-authority front as any other group. They just appeal to different authorities, and in this case the Gentile Society's authorities were saying that a lab leak is unacceptable belief. Also at the time, there was huge reactionary responses to Trumpism, BLM was in full fling, and there wasn't much mental space (and time) left for most people to make clear informed decisions. The trustworthy-looking authorities were saying it's not a leak... and wink-wink if you think it is, you're a Trump supporter. Now that US internal politics is a lot less saturated with crazy stuff, it seems like there's more breathing room for people to sit back and requestion their prior beliefs. And the audience is more receptive, more ready to hear, less occupied with anti-Trumpism.
pageandrew 5y ago
Mere weeks after Covid-19 arrived on our shores, nearly every media, social media, and scientific establishment were in lockstep denouncing the "fringe", "far-right" lab leak theory, and suppressing it as best they could (Twitter banned people for posting about it in 2020). Not only was it fringe, it was racist too! Before any real, thorough research had been done, they stated with certainty that it definitely did not come from the lab. How could they know so quickly? Its scary to see how quickly our formerly respected institutions were to suppress a legitimate inquiry, simply because... why? It was associated with Trump? It offended China? Anyone who argues for more social media censorship needs to look long and hard at the lab leak theory and how it was handled. These corporate giants that are supposed to be the arbiters of what constitutes misinformation got it wrong, and they got it spectacularly wrong. They got it wrong to the detriment of people who want to know what really happened, and they got it wrong in favor of America's greatest adversary.
- camjohnson26 5y ago
  One reason could be because some of the people responsible for researching origins were personally involved in funding gain of function research in these labs. Some scientists privately supported the lab leak theory, but they abruptly changed their minds for unknown reasons. https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/comer-scalise-jordan-call-on-scientists-who-privately-supported-lab-leak-theory-to-provide-answers-under-oath/ https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/comer-scalis...
  - baja_blast 5y ago
    Also you could argue that Virologists also have a conflict of interest, speaking out in support of the lab leak theory would not only jeopardize their ability to continue receiving grants from the NIH, but also could result strict regulations/bans on the majority of their research. So Virologists have a choice: A: State that this virus is natural and be hailed as heroes as funding into your field and research floods in. B: Back the Lab Origin betraying all of their colleagues, become social pariahs and hated in society for being guilty by association for 6+ million deaths. All while you life's work and career all gets thrown down the drain. For a Virologist supporting the lab origin only has downsides.
orhmeh09 5y ago
Is there any more evidence that it originated at a lab in Wuhan and not at Fort Detrick, MD, as some Chinese say? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322
- phyalow 5y ago
  To get a comprhensive and upto date overview for the lab leak theory and its evidence I would recommend reading the following four long form articles in order (primarily to get good context on how the narriative has evolved). As background: [1] Jan 2021 - Intelligencer: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... [2] June 2021 - Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-... [3] Oct 2021 - New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-ca... [4] Feb 2022 - Inference Review https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china The points presented in these articles are all thoroughly well researched and balanced. IMO the points and facts raised taken in a mosiac paint a palpable picture of events. From the last articles conclusion: THE CURRENT SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been, and continues to be, a public health catastrophe—the most serious in a century. Questions about the origins of COVID-19 are, at once, matters of legal, financial, and moral concern. For the moment, researchers can do no better than to hope for an inference to the best explanation; and, for the moment, the best explanation seems to be that the virus escaped from the WIV. The WIV was the biggest transporter of viruses to Wuhan from all over Asia, including many SARS-like viruses from Laos and Yunnan. Phylogenetic analysis shows that the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak was perfectly localized in Wuhan, as all strains that have been found in other locations are descendants of the Wuhan strain. Had the virus been circulating undetected in other parts of China, virologists would have eventually noted those pre-Wuhan strains and their descendants in the phylogenetic tree. Even after sequencing over six million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, no evidence has been found of pre-Wuhan SARS-CoV-2. Not only was the WIV the biggest reservoir of SARS-like viruses in Wuhan, if not the world, its scientists were engaged in creating novel SARS-like and MERS-like chimeras and potentially supercharging their transmissibility and pathogenicity. With these circumstances in mind, consider the following facts: Shi and Jiang were experts in spike protein cleavage and were working on a pan-coronavirus therapeutic to inhibit post-cleavage fusion of the virus with cell membranes. Jiang had previously created a novel furin cleavage site via a 12-nucleotide insertion, though not in a coronavirus. In a joint grant proposal the WIV and EcoHealth submitted to DARPA they suggested creating novel human-specific cleavage sites. Taken together, these points make the 12-nucleotide insertion that has created a novel furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2—so uncharacteristic of SARS-like viruses—look extremely suspicious. The behavior of the WIV and its scientists also raises any number of troubling questions. The viral strain RaTG13 is a case in point. First collected by the WIV in 2013, RaTG13 was sequenced in 2018, but not disclosed until after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. In their initial disclosure, the WIV failed to mention how or when they came to possess RaTG13, failed to indicate that it was previously called Ra4991, failed to cite their own 2016 paper first mentioning it, and seemed to imply that they only sequenced the sample after the outbreak. This does not seem like the behavior of scientists trying their utmost to establish how a Laotian or Yunnan virus came to cause an outbreak in Wuhan. None of these points is in itself conclusive, but the circumstantial evidence is more suggestive of a lab leak than an act of nature. There is an additional reason to take seriously the question at hand. It is prophylactic. Knowing at last that COVID-19 had its origins in the WIV would go some way toward enforcing a worldwide ban on gain-of-function research—research that is almost as useless as it is dangerous.
ceejayoz 5y ago
A known, actively-studied virus leaking out of a lab is precedented, sure. Mistakes happen. A novel one leaking out is a bit different.
- johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago
  How so? I am genuinely curious. They might had been holding out samples before publishing. People discover novel viruses all the time and publish papers based on these novel viruses. It's just that these viruses or publications based on them don't make the headlines outside of academia. That's why it's so important that publish their virus database, which they have taken down on Sept. 2019, right around the time of emergence of the pandemic. Unfortunately they will never publish that database.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > How so? I am genuinely curious. A tiger escaping a zoo is unusual. A previously unknown species of tiger escaping a zoo is substantially more unusual. > Unfortunately they will never publish that database. This one? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/science/coronavirus-sequences-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/science/coronavirus-seque...
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      What about a unknown species of tiger showing up next to a lab collecting tigers from all over the world and engineering hybrids? WIV was bringing in bat's and pangolins from all over asia and engineering them to cross between species and enter cells using the a human Ace2 protein pathway. They published several papers you on their success making new viruses that do exactly this. This is not proof, but you have to admit it ups the probability. I'm not sure, but my understanding is that there are two databases of interest. The NIH one that WIV uploaded sequences to, and a separate WIV database. The WIV database went offline entirely in sep 2019 and hasn't come back. In early 2020 sequenced uploaded to the NIH were deleted. A some the NIH sequences were the ones recently restored and mentioned in your link.
    - 5y ago
tcmart14 5y ago
This is where unfortunately the mass public messes things up. There lots of possibilities that exist as to the origins of COVID. However, everyone I know who thought lab leak was possible, also thought it could only be lab leak and accepted that based on little to no evidence. They themselves rejected that any other origin was possible. The same is said of animal origins. Essentially people picked sides with lack of evidence for whatever their popular theory is. So what we are left with is two sides who point at the other for being the bad guy while doing the same bad thing they accuse the other of.
barbazoo 5y ago
I remember at the very beginning people jumping from the fact that there is a lab in Wuhan to the conclusion that it must have come from there which is different than what's happening nowadays where it's a theory based on data or am I looking at this wrong? In the beginning it had a very xenophobic after taste, at least what laypeople were sharing on social media. To be clear, I don't care much if it came from a lab. I'd probably even prefer it at least then we can do something about it and avoid it going forward rather than this being a random nature thing that could happen again at any time.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. The message was designed to make you feel that way.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    > It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. You don't remember when the sitting president called it "kung flu"[1]? I don't need a newspaper to see the xenophobia in that. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      What is the xenophobia in that? Jokingly calling a virus that originated in China after a martial art that originated in China. That's xenophobic... how?
      - woodruffw 5y ago
        It’s xenophobic for the same reason that any ethnic or national joke can be: it takes an incidental fact (we believe that COVID originated in China) and mixes it into a stereotyped ethnic or national identity (kung fu is from China and Americans think of kung fu when they think of China). Put another way: it takes our laziest view of a ethnicity and uses it to make light of a disease that we think came from there, one that everybody is unhappy about. It doesn’t take much to see the latent xenophobia in that.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
I think that there is sleight of hand in a lot of these politicized arguments. People are conflating a lab leak with being developed in the lab. There’s plenty of precedent for lab leaks. What the conspiracy theorists are lumping it into is that it was created AND leaked. See Rand Paul and his whole Fauci interrogation
mbostleman 5y ago
Considering whether it is polarizing or a crackpot theory would be an ad hominem fallacy anyway right?
btgeekboy 5y ago
I’m totally open to the idea that it was a lab leak of some sort. What I’m opposed to is certain political figures presenting that theory as fact, without evidence, for political gain at the expense of an entire race of people.
- innocentoldguy 5y ago
  The CCP isn't a "race of people" any more than the federal government is. I could be wrong, but I don't remember a single accusation being leveled at Asians. I do recall a lot of accusations being leveled at the CCP and also the US federal government though.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    The CCP is not a race. But everyday Asian Americans (not just Chinese, mind you) have seen a staggering rise[1] in racially motivated crimes because of baseless and intrinsically racist assumptions about their role in COVID[1]. It is difficult to square the latter statistic with claims that our political leaders didn't levy blame at their expense, particularly given their own words[2]. [1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-c... [2]: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps-chinese-virus-tweet-linked-rise-anti-asian-hashtags-twitter https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps-chinese-viru...
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Obviously. To educated, generally egaliatarian people like you and I that makes sense. However the ignorant uneducated sorts out there on the edge looking for a reason to hate Asians (and others) even more and to attack them for imagined "reasons". That's why people say hold up and wait for some proof. The far right and other racist groups love this stuff and we can see that in the 3-5x increase in violence towards Asians in cities all over the country.
    - genousti 5y ago
      Can you link us a mosaique of all the perpetrators of asian violence? Id like to see those far right racists. Im asian and my wife is too we were in new york. The perpetrators were clearly not trump voters.
pvg 5y ago
SARS-CoV-1 was not a novel virus, these were lab accidents that happened after the initial outbreak which was unrelated to labs. Obviously, it's not impossible for an outbreak involving a novel virus to happen because of a lab leak but 'completely precedented' doesn't sound quite right - you're equating two fairly different kinds of event.
- bewaretheirs 5y ago
  Marburg virus was a previously unknown virus when it jumped from monkeys and monkey tissue cultures to researchers in three labs in Marburg, Frankfurt, and Belgrade in 1967.
beebmam 5y ago
It matters that the Chinese government is actively trying to prevent any third-party investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  They're doing that because they are traditionally secretive about mistakes in their back yard, and because there is zero upside to them finding the actual source. The CCP doesn't believe in the intrinsic value of openness in science and government. It doesn't matter whether they did it on purpose like an evil mustache twirling villain, or some group of bats conspired to sully the good name of china, the rest of the world will still scream angry things at china. There's no way for them to win, so why bother. Meanwhile the accusation of china doing bad things conveniently lets the rest of the world ignore the massive and blatant mistakes they made once the virus made it to their borders, as if an unfeeling chunk of proteins cares about national interests or what you call yourself
stjohnswarts 5y ago
It should be treated as fringe until there is some proof. Initially Trump and the other fringe were claiming almost immediately it was a lab accident (or even intentional) before there was ANY proof at all. Don't do that if you want people to take you seriously.
vanusa 5y ago
SARS-CoV-1 leaked out of [edit](three separate labs (one in China, one in Singapore and one in Taiwan)) It is of course very misleading present to these "leaks" as evidence of "lab origin". Especially given that these were all incidents of, not surprisingly, lab workers contracting the virus after it had been brought into the lab for study, and fully a year after SARS-CoV-1 started infecting the public at large. The overwhelming consensus is that SARS-Cov-1 has zoonotic origin with a number of intermediary hosts suspected, including civets, bats and cats. This isn't some fringe crackpot theory Well... let's just leave the terms "fringe" and "crackpot" to the side for a minute. Being as we're both open-minded, curious individuals at all. The bigger point here the quality of one's reasoning -- and the argument you're presenting here -- "Lab workers infected by a virus 2 years after a public outbreak evidence lab origin" (my paraphrase) -- is patently specious. Such that I'm not sure you even believe what you're saying, actually. Not that I'm saying you're lying to us. But seriously -- did you stop to think at all basic chain of cause and effect here? Did you?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > It is of course very misleading present to these "leaks" as evidence of "lab origin". To be clear I don't have any evidence of a lab leak origin [edit](for COVID-19), and did not claim to!
  - vanusa 5y ago
    "It's completely precedented", you said, apparently in reference the lab-origin hypothesis.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Indeed, I was referring to the idea of viruses and bacteria escaping from research labs and then, occasionally, spreading within a community. I provided evidence of this claim. I wasn't saying that I believed that COVID-19 specifically escaped from a/the lab. I do not have evidence of that. Apologies if that was unclear. I was pushing back on the initial out-of-hand rejection of this idea.
kurthr 5y ago
I wish this report got us any closer to really knowing[1]. Unfortunately, it just feeds on the same emotional headlines and conspiracy spreading sites as the last 2 years. When HK Tweets, the Daily Mail, and Washington Times are your starting point[2], each containing their own unsupported allegations, with Chinese[3], Russian, and US agit prop all vying for their place at the table, reasonable people will respond with, "come back when you have some evidence", or "and this helps how?". Should the WHO be able to actually do their investigation, yes, but do I really trust the Director General Ghebreyesus, no, because he's been uniformly awful from denying human COVID transmissibility to denying boosters. **** [1] This Fine Telegraph - Feb '22 _The timeline matters a lot here. If they were sequenced in Dec 2019 then it’s exceptionally important, because [China] holds SarsCov2s not discovered until December 30 to 31._ “On other hand, if sequenced in early 2020 then they could be contaminated with some early patient samples and still concord with Chinese government timeline. Right now, it doesn't seem there is enough info to narrow down timeline to distinguish between these. “All we can say is that these samples were contaminated at Sangon Biotech with some early SarsCov2 viruses, some of which appear to have been from lab-grown samples.” ***** ====[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-how-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-suddenly-became-credible/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-... - March '21 Dec. 30, 2019: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issues an “urgent notice” to medical institutions in Wuhan, saying that cases of pneumonia of unknown cause have emerged from the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Jan. 5, 2020: Earliest known tweet suggesting China created the virus. @GarboHK tweeted: “18 years ago, #China killed nearly 300 #HongKongers by unreporting #SARS cases, letting Chinese tourists travel around the world, to Asia specifically to spread the virus with bad intention. Today the evil regime strikes again with a new virus.” Jan. 23: A Daily Mail article appears, headlined: “China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan — and U.S. biosafety experts warned in 2017 that a virus could ‘escape’ the facility that’s become key in fighting the outbreak.” Jan. 26: The Washington Times publishes an article with the headline: “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program.” An editor’s note is added March 25: “Since this story ran, scientists outside of China have had a chance to study the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They concluded it does not show signs of having been manufactured or purposefully manipulated in a lab.” ====== [3] Immediately after, we have Chinese propaganda saying it came from US deer and Fort Detrick. May '21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2A7Bb3Rxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2A7Bb3Rxo
joefife 5y ago
"This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such." A big concern was the bloodlust against China - and that by humouring this theory, there could be fatal consequences for Chinese nationals across the world, and a potential public desire for retribution. I can understand why the theory was shut down - a large chunk of society isn't capable of understanding that "this is just one of those unfortunate occurrences. I can forgive this lie.
ajross 5y ago
> It could have happened. [...] This isn't some fringe crackpot theory Those contentions don't follow. Yes, if covid existed in Wuhan as a sample under study, it absolutely could have been leaked. The question is whether it was or not, and your "could have" doesn't speak to that. The linked article does, a little. It's not great evidence but it's something, and the sequence seems to be an early/transitional variant that hasn't been heretofore attested. That's something. But prior to this? There wasn't anything but some general circumstantial evidence that coronaviruses were under study and that maybe that involved gain of function research. So arguing for a lab origin yesterday was, if not "crackpot", at least premature. Today? Maybe, I guess? I think if nothing else this opens up an avenue of investigation. There are probably a lot of samples in freezers around the world that passed through the handful of Chinese institutions in question in 2019. If more of those turn up, then I think the "fringe" folks may actually have something. But you don't get to argue for something like that (literally accusing people of being responsible for the most damaging public health event of the last century) before you have the evidence.
nscalf 5y ago
Like most polarizing things these days, it seems like the only right response is "I don't know, someone should look into that." This is exactly the feeling I got with the love-hate for every new drug (Ivermectin, etc). No one knows anything, don't act like you're right or wrong, gather evidence and assess based off that. The lab leak theory in particular seems to continue to get evidence supporting it.

nicoburns 5y ago

> This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such. I agree. I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of the early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked on purpose, which strays well into conspiracy theory territory.

dnautics 5y ago
You could say that but, based on some revealed communications it also feels (we can never truly know what was in their heads) like there was a concerted effort by denouncers of the lab leak theory to conflate lab leaks with purposeful leaks to discredit the lab leak theory.
timr 5y ago
> I think it got labelled as crackpot because a lot of the early proponents were suggesting that it was leaked on purpose, which strays well into conspiracy theory territory. Maybe, but the early communication allowed for no dissent: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife > Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus. That's not ambiguous language. Pretty much a blatant slamming of the door on all non-natural theories of origin. Anything else was labeled "conspiracy" at a very early stage.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I remember when it was racist to say it came from China and to wear a mask.
  - yebyen 5y ago
    When it was racist to wear a mask? Have to admit that's a new one for me.
    - johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago
      Not necessrily mask, but defenitely people brought of the question of "cleanliness", which might be very close to hand washing and mask wearing: https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21126758/coronavirus-xenophobia-racism-china-asians https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21126758/coronavirus-xenophobia...
  - MathCodeLove 5y ago
    There are still plenty of people who will accuse you of sinophobia if you dare acknowledge the ongoing genocide happening in China.
- tim333 5y ago
  A lot of what you mentioned was written by Peter Daszak who is one of the main suspects in terms of lab involvement in the origins. The closest wild strain to covid was found in Laos and there is no wildlife trade to Wuhan but Daszak's organisation seems to have been collecting samples there and shipping them to the Wuhan lab. And then when people say "what samples, lets see" you get stonewalling. Before having too much of a go at the Chinese we should subpoena and get the records from that lot (based in NY).
throwawaychina 5y ago
tonguez 5y ago
Your italics seem to be indicating an “appeal to incredulity”. But you don’t present any actual logical argument for why anyone should not believe it was leaked intentionally.
mrguyorama 5y ago
Plenty of people seem to still believe it was leaked on purpose. I don't understand why. It's right up there with the flat earth and chemtrails on the scale of to what end would they do that, and why wouldn't they do something more effective?

axlee 5y ago

The theory was not "crackpot", but it was asserted with 0 evidence back then. The evidence is judged, not the theory itself.

hartator 5y ago
> it was asserted with 0 evidence back then The bat theory was asserted with way more force at the time with even less evidence.
- dnautics 5y ago
  I think you mean wet market theory. This is true, but at least there was a "high bayesian prior" due to that being how it happened in the past. Nonetheless the wet market proponents were irresponsibly aggressive in their forcefulness.
  - snowgrove 5y ago
    As other commenters mentioned there was a “high Bayesian prior” for lab leaks, too.
    - matthewdgreen 5y ago
      All of the previous lab leaks were of known viruses that had previously spilled over into humans via natural processes, then were collected and later leaked out (again). I'm not aware of any truly novel viruses that spilled into humans through a lab leak. Are there any examples?
      - dnautics 5y ago
        What's your threshold for novelness? We can't truly know just how novel covid-19 is; we don't have sequences from the database of coronaviruses, and even if we did it might have leaked right after it was collected, without having been sequenced yet.
      - 5y ago

soperj 5y ago

The reasons it was are very obvious, when you had Donald Trump consistently making it a political issue to further his re-election.

nxmnxm99 5y ago
And the other side calling anyone suggesting a lab leak a right wing conspiracy nut wasn't politicizing it?
sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
tbh it went both ways
rbanffy 5y ago
Particularly serious is trying to confuse a possible lab accident with a deliberate weaponization of a virus.
twofornone 5y ago
Was Trump the one making it political? Or were his opponents making it political by using it as a cheap excuse to accuse him of racism/xenophobia, as they did when he suggested a travel ban in March while democratic senators were explicitly encouraging citizens to visit their local chinatowns?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  The amount of retconning that's being attempted to shore up how dismal of a response Trump's administration had to Covid is something to behold. People were calling trump racist/xenophobic because he was calling it the china virus and the kung flu in the face of a huge rise in attacks on AAPI americans and still lying about his travel ban and about Pelosi visiting Chinatown.. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-claims-about-pelosi-and-chinatown/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-false-claims-about-... https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel-restrictions/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel...
- tiahura 5y ago

bsimpson 5y ago

I hadn't realized how dogmatic so many people are about "believe science" until the pandemic. It's mildly terrifying. It also spills over into other domains. If people feel they aren't allowed to be curious or skeptical about the origins of CoV2, how are they going to feel when you tell them manmade global warming is "settled science"? Curiosity is what fuels life. It's not healthy for us or for our discourse to suppress it.

adventured 5y ago
It's of course not: believe science. It's: obey authority. That's what they really mean when they say it. It's philosophically very wide, it represents a much broader spectrum for the person using it than just science. What you're witnessing is a coward's soul laid bare, when you witness someone shut down discussion with bumper sticker regurgitations. When you read the history of any given authoritarian regime of more recent times, there is a large fraction of the general population that tremendously assists the monsters into coming to power, through endless acquiescing. They're the gray moralists, the fence sitters: who am I to have a brain, who am I to have an opinion, little me, who am I to do anything, who am I to hold an opinion separate from such and such important person, I do what I'm told when I'm told without asking questions. They're zombies and they're terrifying to observe in action.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  Except it’s not the introspective people that have nuanced opinions driving this. Right now (on the right and the left) it is being driven by people with absolutist opinions based on contempt for authority and facts.
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  I think calling them cowards is wrong. These people probably are just as spread out on the anti-authority front as any other group. They just appeal to different authorities, and in this case the Gentile Society's authorities were saying that a lab leak is unacceptable belief. Also at the time, there was huge reactionary responses to Trumpism, BLM was in full fling, and there wasn't much mental space (and time) left for most people to make clear informed decisions. The trustworthy-looking authorities were saying it's not a leak... and wink-wink if you think it is, you're a Trump supporter. Now that US internal politics is a lot less saturated with crazy stuff, it seems like there's more breathing room for people to sit back and requestion their prior beliefs. And the audience is more receptive, more ready to hear, less occupied with anti-Trumpism.

pageandrew 5y ago

Mere weeks after Covid-19 arrived on our shores, nearly every media, social media, and scientific establishment were in lockstep denouncing the "fringe", "far-right" lab leak theory, and suppressing it as best they could (Twitter banned people for posting about it in 2020). Not only was it fringe, it was racist too! Before any real, thorough research had been done, they stated with certainty that it definitely did not come from the lab. How could they know so quickly? Its scary to see how quickly our formerly respected institutions were to suppress a legitimate inquiry, simply because... why? It was associated with Trump? It offended China? Anyone who argues for more social media censorship needs to look long and hard at the lab leak theory and how it was handled. These corporate giants that are supposed to be the arbiters of what constitutes misinformation got it wrong, and they got it spectacularly wrong. They got it wrong to the detriment of people who want to know what really happened, and they got it wrong in favor of America's greatest adversary.

camjohnson26 5y ago
One reason could be because some of the people responsible for researching origins were personally involved in funding gain of function research in these labs. Some scientists privately supported the lab leak theory, but they abruptly changed their minds for unknown reasons. https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/comer-scalise-jordan-call-on-scientists-who-privately-supported-lab-leak-theory-to-provide-answers-under-oath/ https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/comer-scalis...
- baja_blast 5y ago
  Also you could argue that Virologists also have a conflict of interest, speaking out in support of the lab leak theory would not only jeopardize their ability to continue receiving grants from the NIH, but also could result strict regulations/bans on the majority of their research. So Virologists have a choice: A: State that this virus is natural and be hailed as heroes as funding into your field and research floods in. B: Back the Lab Origin betraying all of their colleagues, become social pariahs and hated in society for being guilty by association for 6+ million deaths. All while you life's work and career all gets thrown down the drain. For a Virologist supporting the lab origin only has downsides.

orhmeh09 5y ago

Is there any more evidence that it originated at a lab in Wuhan and not at Fort Detrick, MD, as some Chinese say? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322

phyalow 5y ago
To get a comprhensive and upto date overview for the lab leak theory and its evidence I would recommend reading the following four long form articles in order (primarily to get good context on how the narriative has evolved). As background: [1] Jan 2021 - Intelligencer: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... [2] June 2021 - Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-... [3] Oct 2021 - New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-ca... [4] Feb 2022 - Inference Review https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china The points presented in these articles are all thoroughly well researched and balanced. IMO the points and facts raised taken in a mosiac paint a palpable picture of events. From the last articles conclusion: THE CURRENT SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been, and continues to be, a public health catastrophe—the most serious in a century. Questions about the origins of COVID-19 are, at once, matters of legal, financial, and moral concern. For the moment, researchers can do no better than to hope for an inference to the best explanation; and, for the moment, the best explanation seems to be that the virus escaped from the WIV. The WIV was the biggest transporter of viruses to Wuhan from all over Asia, including many SARS-like viruses from Laos and Yunnan. Phylogenetic analysis shows that the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak was perfectly localized in Wuhan, as all strains that have been found in other locations are descendants of the Wuhan strain. Had the virus been circulating undetected in other parts of China, virologists would have eventually noted those pre-Wuhan strains and their descendants in the phylogenetic tree. Even after sequencing over six million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, no evidence has been found of pre-Wuhan SARS-CoV-2. Not only was the WIV the biggest reservoir of SARS-like viruses in Wuhan, if not the world, its scientists were engaged in creating novel SARS-like and MERS-like chimeras and potentially supercharging their transmissibility and pathogenicity. With these circumstances in mind, consider the following facts: Shi and Jiang were experts in spike protein cleavage and were working on a pan-coronavirus therapeutic to inhibit post-cleavage fusion of the virus with cell membranes. Jiang had previously created a novel furin cleavage site via a 12-nucleotide insertion, though not in a coronavirus. In a joint grant proposal the WIV and EcoHealth submitted to DARPA they suggested creating novel human-specific cleavage sites. Taken together, these points make the 12-nucleotide insertion that has created a novel furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2—so uncharacteristic of SARS-like viruses—look extremely suspicious. The behavior of the WIV and its scientists also raises any number of troubling questions. The viral strain RaTG13 is a case in point. First collected by the WIV in 2013, RaTG13 was sequenced in 2018, but not disclosed until after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. In their initial disclosure, the WIV failed to mention how or when they came to possess RaTG13, failed to indicate that it was previously called Ra4991, failed to cite their own 2016 paper first mentioning it, and seemed to imply that they only sequenced the sample after the outbreak. This does not seem like the behavior of scientists trying their utmost to establish how a Laotian or Yunnan virus came to cause an outbreak in Wuhan. None of these points is in itself conclusive, but the circumstantial evidence is more suggestive of a lab leak than an act of nature. There is an additional reason to take seriously the question at hand. It is prophylactic. Knowing at last that COVID-19 had its origins in the WIV would go some way toward enforcing a worldwide ban on gain-of-function research—research that is almost as useless as it is dangerous.

ceejayoz 5y ago

A known, actively-studied virus leaking out of a lab is precedented, sure. Mistakes happen. A novel one leaking out is a bit different.

johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago
How so? I am genuinely curious. They might had been holding out samples before publishing. People discover novel viruses all the time and publish papers based on these novel viruses. It's just that these viruses or publications based on them don't make the headlines outside of academia. That's why it's so important that publish their virus database, which they have taken down on Sept. 2019, right around the time of emergence of the pandemic. Unfortunately they will never publish that database.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > How so? I am genuinely curious. A tiger escaping a zoo is unusual. A previously unknown species of tiger escaping a zoo is substantially more unusual. > Unfortunately they will never publish that database. This one? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/science/coronavirus-sequences-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/science/coronavirus-seque...
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    What about a unknown species of tiger showing up next to a lab collecting tigers from all over the world and engineering hybrids? WIV was bringing in bat's and pangolins from all over asia and engineering them to cross between species and enter cells using the a human Ace2 protein pathway. They published several papers you on their success making new viruses that do exactly this. This is not proof, but you have to admit it ups the probability. I'm not sure, but my understanding is that there are two databases of interest. The NIH one that WIV uploaded sequences to, and a separate WIV database. The WIV database went offline entirely in sep 2019 and hasn't come back. In early 2020 sequenced uploaded to the NIH were deleted. A some the NIH sequences were the ones recently restored and mentioned in your link.
  - 5y ago

tcmart14 5y ago

This is where unfortunately the mass public messes things up. There lots of possibilities that exist as to the origins of COVID. However, everyone I know who thought lab leak was possible, also thought it could only be lab leak and accepted that based on little to no evidence. They themselves rejected that any other origin was possible. The same is said of animal origins. Essentially people picked sides with lack of evidence for whatever their popular theory is. So what we are left with is two sides who point at the other for being the bad guy while doing the same bad thing they accuse the other of.

barbazoo 5y ago

I remember at the very beginning people jumping from the fact that there is a lab in Wuhan to the conclusion that it must have come from there which is different than what's happening nowadays where it's a theory based on data or am I looking at this wrong? In the beginning it had a very xenophobic after taste, at least what laypeople were sharing on social media. To be clear, I don't care much if it came from a lab. I'd probably even prefer it at least then we can do something about it and avoid it going forward rather than this being a random nature thing that could happen again at any time.

ipaddr 5y ago
It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. The message was designed to make you feel that way.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > It was labelled as racist and sold through the news. Many people felt that xenophobia aftertaste. You don't remember when the sitting president called it "kung flu"[1]? I don't need a newspaper to see the xenophobia in that. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436
  - MathCodeLove 5y ago
    What is the xenophobia in that? Jokingly calling a virus that originated in China after a martial art that originated in China. That's xenophobic... how?
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      It’s xenophobic for the same reason that any ethnic or national joke can be: it takes an incidental fact (we believe that COVID originated in China) and mixes it into a stereotyped ethnic or national identity (kung fu is from China and Americans think of kung fu when they think of China). Put another way: it takes our laziest view of a ethnicity and uses it to make light of a disease that we think came from there, one that everybody is unhappy about. It doesn’t take much to see the latent xenophobia in that.

dghlsakjg 5y ago

I think that there is sleight of hand in a lot of these politicized arguments. People are conflating a lab leak with being developed in the lab. There’s plenty of precedent for lab leaks. What the conspiracy theorists are lumping it into is that it was created AND leaked. See Rand Paul and his whole Fauci interrogation

mbostleman 5y ago

Considering whether it is polarizing or a crackpot theory would be an ad hominem fallacy anyway right?

btgeekboy 5y ago

I’m totally open to the idea that it was a lab leak of some sort. What I’m opposed to is certain political figures presenting that theory as fact, without evidence, for political gain at the expense of an entire race of people.

innocentoldguy 5y ago
The CCP isn't a "race of people" any more than the federal government is. I could be wrong, but I don't remember a single accusation being leveled at Asians. I do recall a lot of accusations being leveled at the CCP and also the US federal government though.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  The CCP is not a race. But everyday Asian Americans (not just Chinese, mind you) have seen a staggering rise[1] in racially motivated crimes because of baseless and intrinsically racist assumptions about their role in COVID[1]. It is difficult to square the latter statistic with claims that our political leaders didn't levy blame at their expense, particularly given their own words[2]. [1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-c... [2]: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps-chinese-virus-tweet-linked-rise-anti-asian-hashtags-twitter https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps-chinese-viru...
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Obviously. To educated, generally egaliatarian people like you and I that makes sense. However the ignorant uneducated sorts out there on the edge looking for a reason to hate Asians (and others) even more and to attack them for imagined "reasons". That's why people say hold up and wait for some proof. The far right and other racist groups love this stuff and we can see that in the 3-5x increase in violence towards Asians in cities all over the country.
  - genousti 5y ago
    Can you link us a mosaique of all the perpetrators of asian violence? Id like to see those far right racists. Im asian and my wife is too we were in new york. The perpetrators were clearly not trump voters.

pvg 5y ago

SARS-CoV-1 was not a novel virus, these were lab accidents that happened after the initial outbreak which was unrelated to labs. Obviously, it's not impossible for an outbreak involving a novel virus to happen because of a lab leak but 'completely precedented' doesn't sound quite right - you're equating two fairly different kinds of event.

bewaretheirs 5y ago
Marburg virus was a previously unknown virus when it jumped from monkeys and monkey tissue cultures to researchers in three labs in Marburg, Frankfurt, and Belgrade in 1967.

beebmam 5y ago

It matters that the Chinese government is actively trying to prevent any third-party investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

mrguyorama 5y ago
They're doing that because they are traditionally secretive about mistakes in their back yard, and because there is zero upside to them finding the actual source. The CCP doesn't believe in the intrinsic value of openness in science and government. It doesn't matter whether they did it on purpose like an evil mustache twirling villain, or some group of bats conspired to sully the good name of china, the rest of the world will still scream angry things at china. There's no way for them to win, so why bother. Meanwhile the accusation of china doing bad things conveniently lets the rest of the world ignore the massive and blatant mistakes they made once the virus made it to their borders, as if an unfeeling chunk of proteins cares about national interests or what you call yourself

stjohnswarts 5y ago

It should be treated as fringe until there is some proof. Initially Trump and the other fringe were claiming almost immediately it was a lab accident (or even intentional) before there was ANY proof at all. Don't do that if you want people to take you seriously.

vanusa 5y ago

SARS-CoV-1 leaked out of [edit](three separate labs (one in China, one in Singapore and one in Taiwan)) It is of course very misleading present to these "leaks" as evidence of "lab origin". Especially given that these were all incidents of, not surprisingly, lab workers contracting the virus after it had been brought into the lab for study, and fully a year after SARS-CoV-1 started infecting the public at large. The overwhelming consensus is that SARS-Cov-1 has zoonotic origin with a number of intermediary hosts suspected, including civets, bats and cats. This isn't some fringe crackpot theory Well... let's just leave the terms "fringe" and "crackpot" to the side for a minute. Being as we're both open-minded, curious individuals at all. The bigger point here the quality of one's reasoning -- and the argument you're presenting here -- "Lab workers infected by a virus 2 years after a public outbreak evidence lab origin" (my paraphrase) -- is patently specious. Such that I'm not sure you even believe what you're saying, actually. Not that I'm saying you're lying to us. But seriously -- did you stop to think at all basic chain of cause and effect here? Did you?

arcticbull 5y ago
> It is of course very misleading present to these "leaks" as evidence of "lab origin". To be clear I don't have any evidence of a lab leak origin [edit](for COVID-19), and did not claim to!
- vanusa 5y ago
  "It's completely precedented", you said, apparently in reference the lab-origin hypothesis.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Indeed, I was referring to the idea of viruses and bacteria escaping from research labs and then, occasionally, spreading within a community. I provided evidence of this claim. I wasn't saying that I believed that COVID-19 specifically escaped from a/the lab. I do not have evidence of that. Apologies if that was unclear. I was pushing back on the initial out-of-hand rejection of this idea.

kurthr 5y ago

I wish this report got us any closer to really knowing[1]. Unfortunately, it just feeds on the same emotional headlines and conspiracy spreading sites as the last 2 years. When HK Tweets, the Daily Mail, and Washington Times are your starting point[2], each containing their own unsupported allegations, with Chinese[3], Russian, and US agit prop all vying for their place at the table, reasonable people will respond with, "come back when you have some evidence", or "and this helps how?". Should the WHO be able to actually do their investigation, yes, but do I really trust the Director General Ghebreyesus, no, because he's been uniformly awful from denying human COVID transmissibility to denying boosters. **** [1] This Fine Telegraph - Feb '22 _The timeline matters a lot here. If they were sequenced in Dec 2019 then it’s exceptionally important, because [China] holds SarsCov2s not discovered until December 30 to 31._ “On other hand, if sequenced in early 2020 then they could be contaminated with some early patient samples and still concord with Chinese government timeline. Right now, it doesn't seem there is enough info to narrow down timeline to distinguish between these. “All we can say is that these samples were contaminated at Sangon Biotech with some early SarsCov2 viruses, some of which appear to have been from lab-grown samples.” ***** ====[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-how-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-suddenly-became-credible/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-... - March '21 Dec. 30, 2019: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issues an “urgent notice” to medical institutions in Wuhan, saying that cases of pneumonia of unknown cause have emerged from the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Jan. 5, 2020: Earliest known tweet suggesting China created the virus. @GarboHK tweeted: “18 years ago, #China killed nearly 300 #HongKongers by unreporting #SARS cases, letting Chinese tourists travel around the world, to Asia specifically to spread the virus with bad intention. Today the evil regime strikes again with a new virus.” Jan. 23: A Daily Mail article appears, headlined: “China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan — and U.S. biosafety experts warned in 2017 that a virus could ‘escape’ the facility that’s become key in fighting the outbreak.” Jan. 26: The Washington Times publishes an article with the headline: “Coronavirus may have originated in lab linked to China’s biowarfare program.” An editor’s note is added March 25: “Since this story ran, scientists outside of China have had a chance to study the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They concluded it does not show signs of having been manufactured or purposefully manipulated in a lab.” ====== [3] Immediately after, we have Chinese propaganda saying it came from US deer and Fort Detrick. May '21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2A7Bb3Rxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2A7Bb3Rxo

joefife 5y ago

"This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such." A big concern was the bloodlust against China - and that by humouring this theory, there could be fatal consequences for Chinese nationals across the world, and a potential public desire for retribution. I can understand why the theory was shut down - a large chunk of society isn't capable of understanding that "this is just one of those unfortunate occurrences. I can forgive this lie.

ajross 5y ago

> It could have happened. [...] This isn't some fringe crackpot theory Those contentions don't follow. Yes, if covid existed in Wuhan as a sample under study, it absolutely could have been leaked. The question is whether it was or not, and your "could have" doesn't speak to that. The linked article does, a little. It's not great evidence but it's something, and the sequence seems to be an early/transitional variant that hasn't been heretofore attested. That's something. But prior to this? There wasn't anything but some general circumstantial evidence that coronaviruses were under study and that maybe that involved gain of function research. So arguing for a lab origin yesterday was, if not "crackpot", at least premature. Today? Maybe, I guess? I think if nothing else this opens up an avenue of investigation. There are probably a lot of samples in freezers around the world that passed through the handful of Chinese institutions in question in 2019. If more of those turn up, then I think the "fringe" folks may actually have something. But you don't get to argue for something like that (literally accusing people of being responsible for the most damaging public health event of the last century) before you have the evidence.

nscalf 5y ago

Like most polarizing things these days, it seems like the only right response is "I don't know, someone should look into that." This is exactly the feeling I got with the love-hate for every new drug (Ivermectin, etc). No one knows anything, don't act like you're right or wrong, gather evidence and assess based off that. The lab leak theory in particular seems to continue to get evidence supporting it.