Most scientists seem to believe that COVID-19 first infected humans in a Chinese animal market. The pundits I read lean toward the view that COVID originated in a Chinese virology lab. One possible explanation for these differing views is that scientists are reluctant to acknowledge a lab accident that would make their profession look bad. In this case, however, I believe it is the pundits who are mistaken. I suspect that they have correctly intuited that the Chinese government is covering up the origins of COVID-19, but have drawn the wrong inference from that fact.
Throughout history, pandemics have often started in southern China. People in this region consume a wide range of wild animals, and often live in close proximity to animal markets. When I was young, I recall people speaking of the “Hong Kong flu.” If in 2018 you’d asked scientists where the next SARS outbreak would occur, they might have suggested an animal market in a large city in southern China, such as Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu or Wuhan. In fact, SARS-1 originated in an animal market in Guangzhou (in 2002), and almost all of the early cases of SARS-2 (COVID-19) occurred in or near a wild animal market in Wuhan.
Early in 2020, top Chinese scientists like George Gao stated that COVID-19 had begun in the Wuhan animal market, and that the market was shut down for this reason. Case closed? Not quite. Over the remainder of 2020, two conspiracy theories developed; one promoted by the US government and the other promoted by the Chinese government. How this came about is an interesting story.
At first, there was a great deal of sympathy in the West for the unfolding tragedy in Wuhan. In February 2020, President Trump praised the efforts being made by China’s leadership on no fewer than 14 occasions. After March 2020, however, COVID spread to America and it became clear that we were woefully unprepared for the outbreak. At this point, the administration’s attitude toward China flipped, and they began looking for ways to blame China for our own policy failures. False claims were made about China allowing infected passengers to fly out of Wuhan in February 2020.
In the early stages of the pandemic, a few scientists speculated that COVID might have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). This theory was based on incomplete information, and was eventually discarded by most scientists. Contrary to initial reports, the virus does not “look engineered.” (Similar “suspicious” features have since been discovered in the wild). And the initial outbreak occurred near the animal market, not near the WIV, which is located in a completely different section of this large city. But the theory proved to be a handy cudgel for the Trump administration. With his customary casual disregard for the truth, Trump claimed that our intelligence services had found proof of a lab leak.
[As an aside, the wild animal market theory should actually be more embarrassing for China, as these markets were known to be a risk and were supposed to be banned after SARS-1. But administration officials correctly understood that the public would view a lab leak as a bigger scandal. This is despite the fact that America also has lab leaks, but we do not have Wuhan-style wild animal markets.]
Given these facts, why do most pundits favor the lab leak theory, rather than the animal market? I suspect that the Chinese government shot itself in the foot by covering up the origins of COVID. That cover-up made people very suspicious—“where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
China’s government is unusually sensitive to outside criticism, occasionally placing trade sanctions on a country merely in response to mild criticism. They were infuriated by the US attempt to pin the blame for COVID on China, and created another conspiracy theory to deflect attention from the US government’s conspiracy theory. China began suggesting that the virus might have originated outside of China. One version has the virus entering the country through frozen fish, while another speculated that it might have been created in a US lab. These theories are even more unlikely than the lab leak hypothesis.
So now you have three views of the origin of COVID-19. There’s the mainstream scientific view that it crossed over from a wild animal market, a US government conspiracy theory and a Chinese government conspiracy theory. At this point the Chinese government began denying that the animal market was the source of COVID, even denying that it sold wild animals. So in a sense, all three views became “conspiracy theories,” as all three views involved an implicit assumption that someone was hiding something.
Meanwhile, Western scientists continued to research the origins of COVID, and found more and more evidence pointing to the wild animal market. For instance, early cases near the animal market involved two versions of the virus (A and B), which is much more likely if the virus mutated in the animal market before crossing over. In the course of this research, they also stumbled on evidence that Chinese scientists were covering up the animal market origins of COVID. For instance, in swabs taken in the market they found genetic evidence for the sort of wild animals that China had insisted were no longer sold. A previous study by Chinese scientists had failed to disclose this fact. (No proof the animals were infected, however.)
[Check out minutes 41:00 to 43:00 of this podcast, where they speculate that George Gao changed his view on the animal market hypothesis under pressure from the Chinese government.]
This is an important point missed by pundits with only a casual acquaintance with the COVID origins debate. We don’t know if COVID originated in the Wuhan animal market, but we do know that the Chinese government is actively covering up evidence pointing to an animal market origin. Thus no one should be surprised that the Chinese haven’t found an animal host for the virus; there is no evidence that they are even trying. Instead of supporting the lab leak hypothesis, evidence of a Chinese cover-up increasing points to the animal market as the source of the pandemic. China’s government wishes to muddy the water so that neither the lab nor the animal market is known to be the problem. (And it’s not clear that even they know for certain.)
So why don’t most pundits see things the way that I do? I suspect a number of factors:
1. Some pundits are not aware of how much of the initial lab leak “evidence” has been discredited. Conspiracy theories such as the claim that Kennedy was killed by the CIA attract a flood of grifters, who seek to profit from fake evidence. The lab leak hypothesis is no different. I’m continually amazed at how in comment sections to my posts people keep repeating evidence that has already been thoroughly discredited.
2. I suspect that people were powerfully impressed by the fact that COVID outbreak occurred in a city with a virology lab doing research on coronaviruses. But if “geographical proximity” is the key evidence, then you should adopt the animal market hypothesis. That’s where the initial outbreak occurred.
3. Some pundits may have assumed that China’s government was covering up the lab leak evidence and promoting the animal market, whereas most of the cover-up was aimed at the animal market (because that’s where most of the evidence was that needed covering up.)
4. Pundits view evidence of Chinese virology research very suspiciously, because they don’t know much about the subject. If there’s just been a huge coronavirus pandemic, it’s natural to view nearby lab work manipulating coronaviruses with suspicion. To scientists, such research seems perfectly normal. Ditto for safety issues. It’s not clear that the safety procedures at WIV were unusually bad (although there were problems, as in many other labs). But given what happened later, reports of safety lapses are viewed with extreme suspicion, if not outrage. How many of us are even aware of the number of safety lapses at US virology labs?
Is it possible that the virus escaped from the WIV? Absolutely! A scientist might have gotten infected with version A and brought it to the animal market. Another scientist might have been infected with version B and brought it to the same animal market. Or maybe A mutated to B after being brought to the animal market. But the simplest explanation is that this pandemic began as did so many others, with the virus crossing over in southern China to humans working and shopping in close proximity to the sort of wild animals that can serve as a conduit between bats and humans.
It might seem odd that I am downplaying the probability of a lab leak as the origin of COVID-19, given that I’m on record worrying that future research on viruses might pose a near existential risk to humanity. I still have that fear. But my main interest is not in scoring debating points. Rather, I’m interested in seeking the truth.
P.S. In general, I believe that people view China with more suspicion than is warranted. It’s true that China’s government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and bellicose. That’s a big problem. But many of the specific complaints about China are about things that apply equally to the US. We stole lots of intellectual property when we were a developing country. We bully other countries that don’t agree with our foreign policy. We spy on other countries. We have military bases on islands not far from China. There are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about China’s policy in Xinjiang, or its future plans, particularly with regard to Taiwan. But it doesn’t help to promote unproven scandals just because you believe the target is deserving of opprobrium.
P.P.S. The most famous bat caves are over close to Burma, far from the outbreak of both SARS-1 and SARS-2. But there are plenty of bat caves near Wuhan as well.
READER COMMENTS
Eric
Jun 26 2023 at 6:39am
Is anyone aware of a betting or prediction market on the lab origin theory? In cases like this where I’m not sure what to believe and there are good reasons on both sides I like to see the betting markets.
Jon Murphy
Jun 26 2023 at 7:47am
I am unaware of any. It may be because of the difficulty of naming winning conditions. I doubt we’ll ever have a clear answer one way or the other. When victory conditions are unclear, it’s hard to write a good bet.
Mike
Jul 6 2023 at 3:06am
The Rootclaim site has offered $100,000 for someone who can show their probabilistic assessment of 89% likely accidental lab origin via GoF research is incorrect.
https://t.co/VtVID7gC74
Travis
Jul 11 2023 at 4:53pm
Of course there is one on Manifold:
https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/did-covid19-come-from-a-laboratory
Michael Rulle
Jun 26 2023 at 7:27am
As I have said frequently, I have no idea what the source of Covid was——-but Scott has primarily narrowed it down to two plausible ones——-“wet markets” or “lab leaks”. But if one has read Scott on this topic long enough it “SEEMS” obvious that he leans strongly toward wet markets. The logic is not contradictory, however, he believes—or so it seems—-that his premises or more persuasive toward wet markets conclusions.
It’s definitely not persuasive to me. The primary reason for me is ——-if the point of leaning toward lab leak is either mistaken logic or a desire to assign blame to the “bad guys” it fails. Why would wet market causes make them less guilty than lab leak causes? Certainly it is possible they could be blamed for sloppiness of how wet markets have been managed——regardless of intentions.
Finally, Scott is an economist. Strong views on such a topic seem out of whack for a non-scientist. Last, but not least, why do we still care so much? The most telling conclusion one gets from his analysis is still “who knows?”.
Richard Fulmer
Jun 26 2023 at 9:16am
I think that we should care about the source of the virus. If it came from the lab, then we’re faced with questions and policy issues such as:
– Should we be doing gain-of-function research?
– How did the leak occur and how can similar leaks be prevented in the future?
– If similar lab leaks do happen in the future, how can we better deal with them?
If the virus came from a wet market, then, clearly, the questions and policy issues are very different.
Joe S
Jun 26 2023 at 7:28am
Interesting post.
I’m confused about the timeline in the third paragraph: “Early in 2019, …” Is that meant to be 2020?
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 12:19pm
Thanks, I fixed it.
John Hall
Jun 26 2023 at 8:56am
I think the relevant question is something along the lines of “would the optimal public policy be different if the source is a lab leak or animal market”. I don’t think it would be any different. Biological labs that look at viruses like this should have strong safety regulations anyway, and animal markets like this are a risk anyway.
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 12:20pm
This is my view.
Andrew_FL
Jun 26 2023 at 9:50am
I think you are correct that people see the Chinese government covering up COVID and assume that means there was a lab leak and they know it (aside-we should also distinguish accidental lab leak of a wild type virus from release, unintentional or otherwise, of an engineered bioweapon-much of punditry is casually conflating these two things, sometimes on purpose)
IMO the most convincing argument isn’t two types, it’s the fact that we would expect a lab virus sample to be *lacking* significant mutations that wild type viruses of close lineage have developed since the sample was taken and put into cold storage. This is how we know for example that the 1977 Influenza outbreak in Russia originated from decades old lab samples. There is no such evidence for SARS-CoV-2.
steve
Jun 26 2023 at 10:12am
You should add at least three other reasons why people so willingly accept or want the lab leak theory to be true. First a minor reason. People dont understand how big Wuhan, China cities in general, are now. Wuhan has a population of over 11 million, about 40% larger than NYC. Since it is not a famous city in the US and its in the interior people think its more like Milwaukee or Omaha. In reality it’s so large people can go for years, like in NYC, without ever entering many parts of the city.
Second, I dont think many people realize how long it took to find other viral vectors. Over 20 years for HIV.
Last, maybe most important is politics. You allude to that but there is a large group of people who desperately want to blame Fauci since in their minds that would then discredit everything he did or said. It would make Fauci, and China, responsible very directly if you can blame gain of function study, or so they believe. It would require people to forget that Trump deregulated gain of function research but cognitive dissonance wont be an issue.
Query- Shouldn’t the labs be deregulated? Let them follow whatever procedures they want?
Steve
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 12:24pm
I’ve been to Wuhan, and as you say it’s a sprawling city. The lab is in a completely separate part of the city, across one of the world’s largest rivers. People living near the lab would not typically shop near the animal market, just as a Manhattan resident would not go grocery shopping in Queens.
Mike
Jun 27 2023 at 3:11am
Scientists commute. WIV is serviced by Line 2 of the Metro System and runs through Hankou station, which is a 15 min walk to the Huanan seafood market. Dr Steven Quay posted a preprint on this.
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 12:54pm
Sure, that’s absolutely possible. But Occam’s razor comes into play here. There are 100s of places in Wuhan where a superspreader event could have occurred. What are the odds that it would have happened to be that specific animal market?
Andrew_FL
Jun 26 2023 at 3:26pm
HIV is not a good example because there were about three decades between when it got out of Africa and when patients started showing up in sufficient numbers for AIDS to start to get identified. In fact it was probably three decades before *that* when it first crossed between apes and humans.
Louis R. Nemzer, Ph.D.
Jun 26 2023 at 11:01am
“Most scientists seem to believe that Covid-19 first infected humans in a Chinese animal market. The pundits I read lean toward the view that Covid originated in a Chinese virology lab.”
It is not correct that this origin of COVID debate is between “scientists” and “pundits,” as this piece implies. Many scientists, including virologist Jesse Bloom and microbiologist David Relman, believe a lab origin to be plausible and worthy of further investigation. The department of Energy has determined a lab origin to be more likely than a natural spillover.
“If in 2018 you’d asked scientists where the next SARS outbreak would occur, they might have suggested an animal market in a large city in southern China, such as Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu or Wuhan.”
In fact, the director of the WIV, Shi Zhengli, said “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” In one of their studies, they used Wuhan as a negative control for antibodies for coronavirus exposure, since they thought a spillover there to be so unlikely. Ecohealth Alliance spent millions of dollars sampling in rural areas, since that is where they expected contacts between humans and bats (or animals bitten by bats) to be most frequent. The have a paper that explicitly argues spillovers are less likely to occur in urban areas.
“almost all of the early cases of SARS-2 (Covid-19) occurred in or near a wild animal market in Wuhan.”
This is based on incomplete data and could be due to ascertainment bias, since a link to the market was, for a time, explicitly part of the inclusion criteria to be diagnosed.
“In the early stages of the pandemic, a few scientists speculated that Covid might have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). This theory was based on incomplete information, and was eventually discarded by most scientists. Contrary to initial reports, the virus does not “look engineered”. (Similar “suspicious” features have since been discovered in the wild).”
On Feb 1, 2020 Kristian Andersen emailed that he thought the furin cleavage site “potentially looked engineered”. Four days later, he sent an email saying that an engineered origin was a “crackpot” idea. This change was not based on looking at ‘natural’ features from other coronaviruses. In a later interview, he said it was because he talked with “coronavirus experts” (which included Ron Fouchier) who are not credited in the resulting paper “Proximal Origin”.
“Meanwhile, western scientists continued to research the origins of Covid, and found more and more evidence pointing to the wild animal market. For instance, early cases near the animal market involved two versions of the virus (A and B), which is much more likely if the virus mutated in the animal market before crossing over.”
The evidence for the “double spillover” hypothesis has been significantly overstated. All of the environmental samples taken from the wet market were (the presumably later) lineage B, while only a single glove (on Jan 1) tested to be from lineage A. This is not would be expected if both lineages indeed spillover from animals there. This is much more consistent with a human bringing the virus into the market and being amplified.
“In the course of this research, they also stumbled on evidence that Chinese scientists were covering up the animal market origins of Covid. For instance, in swabs taken in the market they found genetic evidence for the sort of wild animals that China had insisted were no longer sold. A previous study by Chinese scientists had failed to disclose this fact. (No proof the animals were infected, however.)”
The explanation involves an explicit coverup by Chinese scientists. “Chinese scientists were covering up the animal market origins of Covid.” Why is this any better or more likely than a coverup of a lab origin? In addition to no known infected animal, the species of the hypothesized intermediate host is still unknown, and no precursor animal viruses have ever been found (unlike for SARS)
“This is an important point missed by pundits with only a casual acquaintance with the Covid origins debate. We don’t know if Covid originated in the Wuhan animal market, but we do know that the Chinese government is actively covering up evidence pointing to an animal market origin. Thus no one should be surprised that the Chinese haven’t found an animal host for the virus; there is no evidence that they are even trying. Instead of supporting the lab leak hypothesis, evidence of a Chinese cover-up increasing points to the animal market as the source of the pandemic.
Again, you are explaining a lack of evidence – the missing animal host – with a government coverup. This is also a ‘conspiracy theory’ just as much as the scientists hiding the progenitor virus in a WIV freezer.
“China’s government wishes to muddy the water so that neither the lab nor the animal market is known to be the problem.” (And it’s not clear that even they know for certain.)”
This is probably true. Bejing would rather the origin be a muddle.
I suspect that people were powerfully impressed by the fact that Covid outbreak occurred in a city with a virology lab doing research on coronaviruses. But if “geographical proximity” is the key evidence, then you should adopt the animal market hypothesis. That’s where the initial outbreak occurred.
The closest known relative to COVID at the time of the outbreak, RaTG13, had been collected by WIV researchers and transported over 1,000 km to Wuhan. There is no other known route for related viruses to have travelled this far and then specifically spilling over in that same city, while leaving no trace along the way or anywhere else (like a hypothesized animal farm etc.)
It is not clear that the “initial outbreak” occurred at market at all, since China has not been transparent with the WHO about early case data, and some earlier cases (such as a Nov 17 case) were dismissed without releasing the underlying data.
The apparent clustering could easily have been an amplification event + ascertainment bias. The were not sampling other locations around the city for the virus, which could have been very widespread by December and January, even if the earliest cases were in November – but here is evidence that it started much earlier.
“It’s not clear that the safety procedures at WIV were unusually bad (although there were problems, as in many other labs). But given what happened later, reports of safety lapses are viewed with extreme suspicion, if not outrage. How many of us are even aware of the number of safety lapses at US virology labs?”
When it was revealed that the WIV was creating coronavirus chimeras at BSL2, many scientists, including Ian Lipkin (who was a co-author on Proximal Origin) were extremely dismayed. Ralph Baric, who is the expert on this topic, requires his lab to use BSL3 or higher. The fact that there are unknown safety lapses everywhere is not a comforting idea.
“Is it possible that the virus escaped from the WIV? Absolutely! A scientist might have gotten infected with version A and brought it to the animal market. Another scientist might have been infected with version B and brought it to the same animal market. Or maybe A mutated to B after being brought to the animal market. But the simplest explanation is that this pandemic began as did so many others, with the virus crossing over in southern China to humans working and shopping in close proximity to the sort of wild animals that can serve as a conduit between bats and humans.”
Again, this is relying on very thin evidence that lineage A was ever at the market.
“In general, I believe that people view China with more suspicion than is warranted.”
But you just accused Chinese scientists of orchestrating an elaborate coverup to hide the animal origin of a pandemic that has killed millions of people!
“The most famous bat caves are over close to Burma, far from the outbreak of both SARS-1 and SARS-2. But there are plenty of bat caves near Wuhan as well.”
The closest relatives to COVID have been from Yunnan province in southern China, or in nearby Laos. The naturally occurring coronaviruses in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, have all been more that 3x more divergent, and closer to SARS than COVID.
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 5:35pm
Good comment. I disagree with the implications you draw from a number of claims.
1. I never said all scientists favored the animal market. I said they tended to hold that view.
2. The Worobey study did investigate whether the pattern was merely due to ascertainment bias. It wasn’t.
3. Wuhan is roughly as far from the “bat caves” as is Guangzhou (site of the SARS-1 outbreak.) So I don’t see why it’s an implausible spot for an outbreak. Regarding the Shi quote, I recall that a prominent virologist (Holmes?) worried back in 2014 that Wuhan’s animal market was a potential site for an outbreak.
4. Whether Andersen had good or bad reasons for changing his mind is not relevant to the issue of whether the virus looks engineered, given what we now know.
Some of your comments repeat what I said, and yet you seem to believe they weaken my arguments. For instance:
“This is also a ‘conspiracy theory’ just as much as the scientists hiding the progenitor virus in a WIV freezer.”
Yes, as I said.
As far as anti-China bias, I did not argue that we should trust the Chinese government. I argued that we should not let anti-Chinese bias make us more receptive to a lab leak than to the animal market hypothesis.
Research that is dangerous should not be done in either BSL-2 or BSL-3 labs—accidents can happen anywhere. It’s not worth risking millions of lives.
I’m not qualified to respond to your arguments about lineages A and B, although obviously some virologists don’t agree with your interpretation.
Mike
Jun 27 2023 at 3:15am
David Bahry’s found Worobey et al were incorrect to dismiss ascertainment bias.
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00313-23
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 1:05pm
I’m not convinced. Even cases with no link to the market (working or shopping) tended to live near the market. But that fact would not have been known until they showed up in hospitals.
And the reason the market was first identified is that most of the earliest cases were closely linked to it. Wuhan health officials clearly saw what was going on. Even many lab leak proponents now accept that any explanation must account for a superspreader event in December at the market.
Mike
Jun 28 2023 at 7:48am
Thanks, my understanding is that while of the first 14 hospitalized 8 had links to the market and given their previous experience with SARS the market was a logical suspect so they introduced the surveillance of neighborhoods near the market or linked to the market. There seems to be some dispute as to whether the first recorded case was linked to the market or not.
Something Kiwi data scientist Gilles Demaneuf noted, which the WaPo covered last year, was there is a significant difference in the 2019 WHO case numbers with the CDC numbers from peer reviewed papers. The WHO data Worobey et. al. rely on had 174 cases while the CDC numbers are between 247-260. It’s messy.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364644929_Arrested_Development_The_number_of_Wuhan_cases_of_COVID-19_with_onset_in_2019
Scott Sumner
Jun 28 2023 at 3:59pm
The first known case was linked to the market. Early reports to the contrary were false.
There’s just a lot of misinformation out there.
MarkW
Jun 26 2023 at 11:21am
I am not sure which theory I think is most probable. But what is obvious (and what matters much more to me) is that it is beyond appalling that U.S. government twisted the arms of tech and media companies to suppress the discussion of the lab leak hypothesis (as ‘disinformation’) to the extent that it was a huge deal when Jon Stewart went on Colbert and floated the possibility of a lab leak (and mostly got away with it). I expected government censorship from an authoritarian state like China. I did not expect it from our putative liberal democracy. Nor did I expect so many in the U.S. to support the censorship or think it wasn’t a big deal because it was their tribe doing the censoring of the bad people in the other tribe.
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 12:38pm
I agree. I’m surprised that Trump has not received more criticism for the way his administration tried to shut down discussion of controversial issues back in 2020.
steve
Jun 26 2023 at 4:35pm
Not only that, Trump did nothing to ever manage the CDC or hold their leadership accountable for mistakes.
Steve
MarkW
Jun 27 2023 at 1:56pm
I guess I really don’t care who gets the blame for government censorship-by-proxy via various allies in big media and tech companies, as long as there’s general agreement that it was an unconstitutional abuse that should never be repeated. Making Trump the fall-guy is OK with me, though the idea that it was Trump’s friends at the head of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, the NY Times, etc who were doing his bidding to suppress information does seem a little far-fetched.
Another big outrage of the Trump years was the putatively non-political, non-partisan civil servants in the agencies actively working to ‘resist’, thwart, and conspire to remove the elected head of government. Again, what I really care about is a general agreement that this is simply not the way our democracy is supposed to work.
Trump will be out of the picture either by next year (if he loses the nomination or election again) and by 2028 at the latest, but I fear the ‘Brazilification’ or ‘Agentinafication’ of the US that happened (partly due to Trump’s populism and bombast but mostly due to the reaction to Trump and what followed him) may prove very hard to reverse when he’s gone. Scott thinks the US hasn’t been a serious country economically since about 2010. I’d say, it’s far from just economics.
Harish Seshadri
Jun 26 2023 at 12:33pm
I don’t know what “pundits” you are talking about. There are well-known virologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists, etc who have been involved in these discussions since early 2020 and think that a research-related origin is as likely, if not more, than a market origin. Of course, you can dismiss these scientists as fringe elements and continue to harbor the “most scientists” narrative. Some specific points:
The Line A/B multiple spillover theory is doubted by certain prominent virologists (Marc Eloit of the Institut Pasteur, Paris is one such scientist. He is known for the only actual discovery in the past 3 years [as opposed to coming up with speculative and simplistic models] related to zoonosis: he and his team discovered the BANAL viruses of Laos).
The geographical proximity of WIV is a nontrivial matter. WIV is not just any old lab working on CoVs – it is the world’s largest such facility in terms of sample collection and research output. Unfortunately, as is the case with labs in developing countries (I am in one), corners are cut and biosafety standards are not comparable to those of labs in the West. Even worse, WIV was performing chimera work at BSL-2 levels. Here is what Ralph Baric of UNC, a leading expert on CoVs and GOFROC had to say in 2021 (MIT Tech Review): “If you study hundreds of different bat viruses at BSL-2, your luck may eventually run out.” The shocked reactions of Francis Collins, Ralph Baric, Ian Lipkin and many others when they came to know about BSL-2 work at WIV speak volumes about the significance of WIV.
“To scientists, such research seems perfectly normal.” For all your laments about “pundits” not being well-informed, you are not well-informed yourself. When the DEFUSE proposal (that proposed furin cleavage site insertion in SARS-like viruses) came to light in Sept 2021, even the most vocal pro-zoonosis virologists were stunned that such a risky experiment was even proposed. Of course, they quickly rationalized that since it wasn’t funded by DARPA, it was never carried out.
Without a lab audit of WIV and related labs, there is no way of ruling out a lab origin. This is not maths or physics and deductive logic can only go far (which is very little). It is a matter that should be forensically investigated – in particular, not a basic science question that can be solved by people sitting thousands of miles away. Imagine if the EPA investigated potential industrial accidents by refusing to conduct onsite inspections and instead relied on data supplied by the company.
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 5:44pm
Most of your comment is based on a series of misconceptions. I am on record as being extremely concerned about the risk of lab leaks, and especially skeptical of the value of gain-of-function research, so you are speaking to the converted.
I never said all scientists favored the animal market, nor did I label lab leak proponents “fringe”.
“Without a lab audit of WIV and related labs, there is no way of ruling out a lab origin.”
I agree. I’ve never ruled out the lab leak hypothesis. The animal market should also be investigated. I doubt either will be—the well has been poisoned.
Tim Piatek
Jun 26 2023 at 11:20pm
Ultimately, it seems rather like the market-origin hypothesis has no strong evidence for it other than a) historical precedent; and b) an initial cluster which appears to center around a wet market. I don’t mean to understate either of those conditions, my main concern is the lack of an identified animal source. With both SARS and MERS they were identified relatively quickly; with SARS-CoV2, to the best of my knowledge, all potential proximate sources are merely hypothetical (first pangolins, then frozen exotic meats, then raccoon dogs, etc.).
I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain, but I think we know that the data and material that could illuminate the situation are… managed in such a way that we’ll never access them. More worrying to me is the appearance, if not the reality, of motivated ‘science’ being done to justify public policy interventions; this can only erode public trust in critical health institutions and in the scientists themselves that we look to for unbiased opinions.
I slightly lean towards a lab accident (or even a collection accident, as I recall hearing collections were likewise done with inadequate PPE given the potential dangers). I’m always open to new information and discussion, and value having read your article.
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 1:08pm
“my main concern is the lack of an identified animal source”
That was my concern as well, until it became clear the CCP was covering up the animal market. Now I don’t expect this to ever be resolved.
Harish Seshadri
Jun 27 2023 at 1:42am
“Most of your comment is based on a series of misconceptions. ” Rereading your article, I see that I did misconstrue some of your points.
In any case, I am glad to know your views on biosafety and GOFROC.
“Ditto for safety issues. It’s not clear that the safety procedures at WIV were unusually bad (although there were problems, as in many other labs). But given what happened later, reports of safety lapses are viewed with extreme suspicion, if not outrage. ”
As I remarked earlier, some of the risky GOFROC work was done at BSL-2 levels. This, by itself, would have been a huge scandal if it had happened in the West.
On a separate note, unrelated to your article, this short article from 2012 is worth a read (none of it came as a surprise to me, though – I am in India).
https://www.nature.com/articles/485425a
The problem is compounded by the hierarchical nature of society in developing countries. This results in a much greater likelihood of coverups, especially in authoritarian countries. This was specifically commented on in this article :
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.21487
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 1:10pm
I agree that authoritarian governments cannot be trusted on sensitive issues.
Even democratic governments such as the US government have intentionally put out lies regarding the origin of Covid.
Thomas Hutcheson
Jun 26 2023 at 4:53pm
Are the two theories incompatible? Could the virus not have leaked from a lab to the animal market? Of course it would be “nice” if it were a lab leak meaning that better lab procedures can reduce risks of future infection “easily” while preventing natural animal to human transmission is more difficult. But the point ought to be to try to prevent both rather than identifying one or the other with 100% certainty.
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 1:10pm
Yes, we should fix both problems.
TGGP
Jun 26 2023 at 5:05pm
The bats with the closest relatives to COVID-19 were not found near Wuhan, so one would have expected it to have already started spreading closer to the source.
I would like to see data on what “scientists” rather than “pundits” believe. Alina Chan is an actual scientist, but is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist by Scott (who on this topic is a pundit).
Scott Sumner
Jun 26 2023 at 5:50pm
Are you referring to this tweet?
https://twitter.com/marioph13/status/1672414856249585664
Is the tweet faked, or did she send it out?
That’s all I did—report her tweet.
In any case, I’m also a conspiracy theorist. I believe the CCP is covering up the animal market origin of the pandemic. But I don’t believe the CIA is part of a conspiracy to cover up a lab leak.
Mike
Jun 27 2023 at 6:39am
It is ironic that both market and lab scenarios assume a conspiracy to conceal evidence but only the lab one gets called a conspiracy. Especially as last year the NIH terminated their subaward to Wuhan Institute of Virology for continued refusal to share lab notebooks and electronic files from their SARS-related bat coronaviruses research. Something those who suggest they didn’t have a close enough precursor sequence need to acknowledge. We don’t know.
Scott Sumner
Jun 27 2023 at 1:13pm
Both sides now acknowledge a conspiracy; your point is accurate but it reflects laziness on the part of the media, not anything sinister. The CCP is clearly hiding some information—I think almost everyone agrees on that point.
TGGP
Jun 27 2023 at 4:44pm
I’m referring to your blog post:
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/we-are-not-conspiracy-theorists/
And basically the same point as Chan’s was made by another actual scientist (whom I had pointed out had previously mistakenly cited by Slate against the lab leak hypothesis):
https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1672412212722388992
Scott Sumner
Jun 28 2023 at 4:01pm
Both Chan and Ebright have been quite unreliable on this issue.
TGGP
Jun 29 2023 at 8:40pm
How do you have the ability to determine that actual scientists (Chan & Ebright) are “unreliable on this issue” when you are a pundit rather than a scientist?
Knut P. Heen
Jun 27 2023 at 8:40am
Don’t listen to what people say. Look at how they act. The drastic Covid-policies in both North America and Europe are consistent with a at least a suspicion of a lab-leak at a gain-of-function-lab. There would have been complete public panic if they said that they thought the virus had leaked from a lab which produces particularly deadly viruses. It would be worse than yelling fire in a crowded theater.
As it turned out, the virus is relatively mild, which either implies that the lab is not any good at producing really deadly stuff or that the virus did not come from the lab.
Vivian Darkbloom
Jun 27 2023 at 9:18am
“As it turned out, the virus is relatively mild, which either implies that the lab is not any good at producing really deadly stuff or that the virus did not come from the lab.”
The primary focus of “gain of function” research is not to make viruses more deadly per se (with the possible exception of creating military bio-weapons). Rather, the focus is more often to increase the host range (making viruses heretofore present only in animals transmissible to humans). With regard to the latter objective, if the virus did originate from a Wuhan lab experiment, I’d say they did an outstanding job.
vince
Jun 27 2023 at 6:23pm
That’s right. China has consistently refused to be honest and open about the issue. Without clarity, assuming the worst is justifiable.
Jim Glass
Jun 28 2023 at 2:00am
First, Profs. Jonathan Berk of Stamford University School of Business & Jules van Binsbergen of Wharton, and physicist Lawrence Krauss, be not yet accused of peddling “conspiracy theories such as the claim that Kennedy was killed by the CIA [that] attract a flood of grifters”. 🙂 Agreed?
Indeed! As are all the above professors, powerfully. Should they be? Let’s see how we think about such things usually…
[] A river is found polluted by chemicals made in a chemical factory directly upstream. There is as of yet no direct evidence of the cause of pollution. Do you reasonably consider the factory the prime suspect? Of course you do! You have no proof yet. A passing truck might have dumped stuff. But in law there is a “rebuttable presumption” placing the burden of proof on the factory to disprove it.
[] Real case: 2007, foot & mouth disease breaks out among cows on an English farm 13 miles from the world’s leading research lab on the f&m disease virus. Do you consider that lab the prime suspect source of the outbreak, before it is proven? Of course you do! And you will be proved right.
[] Covid. As Krauss says: “Thousands of food markets in China, the bats are 1,800 km away, and yet ‘in all the markets in all the world the virus appears in ours’ – right next to our one lab were we imported the virus and worked on it. What are the odds?”
It’s just the same – yet in this one case the evidentiary logic is reversed. As Krauss says: “Suddenly the lab is innocent until proven guilty, and the market is guilty until proven innocent. Why?” Indeed, why??
Exactly, which supports the probabilistic argument for the lab leak. With all those places for a pandemic to start, what are the odds that it would start in the one place next to the one lab working on the virus that caused it? Seriously, compute those odds.
Probabilistic evidence is used heavily the sciences, finance, law, and I thought economics. But rejected (reversed!) in this one case? Why?
The probabilistic ‘rebuttable presumption’ is easily defeated. Either by direct evidence of another cause – zero so far – or by lab records showing it wasn’t the cause. Easy, yet the lab has locked down all its relevant virus work logs since 2019. Which in court obviously would be further support for the presumption. And if the probabilistic argument isn’t defeated by evidence it is very serious, not to be hand-waved away. Courts will convict.
So how can there be no serious rebuttable presumption in your mind? As Professor Binsbergen said…
No evidence for the seafood market … we haven’t found an intermediate host …the bats live 1,000 miles away … there’s no evidence of any infection between where the bats live add the Wuhan market …. while the virus is in the lab is right there … is this not an open-and-shut case?
Huh? C’mon, you’re better than this. By this logic do you first assume the English cows were infected by themselves in the fields somehow, not via the foot&mouth virus lab? Nah, you know better, and do not. The argument isn’t ‘geographical’, it’s probabilistic. And it is sound. It isn’t proof, and it is refutable with evidence, but there is no intellectually sound way to ignore it (much less reverse it).
China also covering up what happened in the market does nothing to dispel the coverup in the lab. They cover up everything.
And the the fact that Trumpista cranks attack China is totally irrelevant to everything. Though I suspect the logic “Trumpista cranks attack the Wuhan Lab, thus it is proven innocent” drives irrational defense of the lab on the Left. But — see what happened to Jon Stewart — that’s not logic, that’s a mob in action.
Profs. Berk and van Binsbergen discuss all this with Matt Ridley (also nobody’s ‘crank’), concisely, last month…
Investigating Implausible Theories
Krauss and Ridley talk at length, about many interesting things, including Nature receiving the genomic sequence of the virus and embargoing it for six months (!), delaying development of a vaccine, although whistleblowers got it released in a week. Science ain’t always pretty…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVAAEUTsz5g
Scott Sumner
Jun 28 2023 at 4:06pm
Sorry, but your post makes no sense. Are you saying SARS-1 didn’t start in an animal market in Guangzhou? How’s that different from SARS-2? What’s your point?
I don’t think you understand the science of how these things work. The Wuhan animal market is exactly the sort of place a pandemic would be expected to start. A scientist expressed concern about this exact market back in 2014.
Jim Glass
Jun 29 2023 at 12:23am
Sorry, but your post makes no sense.
You mean: The arguments made by Profs. Jonathan Berk of Stanford, Jules van Binsbergen of Wharton, and physicist Lawrence Krauss, “make no sense”. My post just quoted them with full links.
You aren’t curious how three such smart and well-educated fellows would all look at the same facts and independently then decide to “make no sense” in the same way?
The Wuhan animal market is exactly the sort of place a pandemic would be expected to start.
Of course it is. The above all said that.
And a cattle field like the one in Surrey is exactly the sort of place an outbreak of hoof & mouth disease would be expected to start.
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