Last month The Nation published an article based on records from early 2020 regarding the origin of the COVID virus. The scientists involved, it turns out, were initially receptive to the idea that the virus might have been the result of a leak from a Chinese lab in Wuhan.¹ But after a week of study they wrote a paper that strongly supported the natural spillover hypothesis instead.
Why the turnaround? It happened after they received some new data on coronaviruses in pangolins:
The pangolin data, it turned out, did not provide an explanation for the scientists’ central concerns about the furin cleavage site...but the data did show that coronaviruses circulating in pangolins shared other key features with the pandemic virus. This seems to have played an important role in shifting the scientists’ thinking away from the lab hypothesis.
[Edward] Holmes, who had been described in an earlier e-mail as being “60:40 lab side,” wrote, “Personally, with the pangolin virus possessing 6/6 key sites in the receptor binding domain, I am in favour of the natural evolution theory.”
....Holmes would later describe the evolution of the paper as the scientific process at work: “I’ve absolutely no problem with people knowing that my views on this issue have evolved as more data have appeared. That’s science,” he wrote in a document obtained via FOIA request. “Indeed, I’ve told this to many people: the way [sic] see it is that we set-up an hypothesis and then tested it. As far [sic] I can tell we are only ‘guilty’ of following the proper scientific method.”
"That's science." And indeed it is. Early researchers very seriously considered the lab leak theory—as they should have—but new evidence eventually convinced them that natural spillover was much more likely.
We will likely never know for sure where the COVID virus came from. The only bulletproof evidence will be the discovery of an intermediate host animal that harbors the virus (or one that's very, very close), and so far that hasn't happened.
That said, the consensus among the virology community is pretty strongly on the side of natural spillover. The reason for this is not some kind of Big Brotherish groupthink, it's because their research has persuaded them it's the most likely explanation—and they're among the few with the scientific chops to fully understand the evidence.
Did many of them push back against the lab leak theory? Sure. But this was because they believed it was wrong—and was likely to fuel pointless, time-sapping conspiracy theories. There's really no convincing evidence that they tried to suppress a valid hypothesis for nonscientific reasons.
¹Just for clarity, the researchers discarded almost immediately the idea that the virus had been deliberately engineered. However, they remained wide open to the hypothesis that it had been created via some kind of research at the Wuhan lab and then accidentally leaked.
Another point in favor of the not-a-lab-leak hypothesis is that after decades of searching, we still don't know which species is/are the natural reservoir for ebola. And nobody thinks ebola came from a lab.
That's a good point. Although, since covid-19 has killed about 500 times as many people in less than 1/10th the time, it's probably also true that we aren't spending as much on ebola research as on covid-19. So hopefully we'll find the covid-19 reservoir a bit faster . . .
Ebola also emerged in a remote jungle region rather than a large city.
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Did many of them push back against the lab leak theory? Sure. But this was because they believed it was wrong— and was likely to fuel pointless, time-sapping conspiracy theories.
So why do you keep pushing "open mindedness" about it?
To seem to acknowledge the weaponization and then by omission, I guess suggest people play along and fall in to the trap?
I mean, I don't think you think that, but I don't see how else to read it.
I fail to see how a leak from a research lab = weaponization. Can you explain?
It isn't, in reality. A lab-leak could have been of a naturally-originating bug.
But that's the discourse - the right is using this report to jump several steps ahead and claim it is settled (it isn't) that it was the result of GoF research (theoretically possible, no evidence, rather unlikely for several reasons).
Insurrectionist Barbie was doing it in the House earlier today.
And that's what I'm talking about.
"A lab-leak could have been of a naturally-originating bug." Every competent reputable scientist says it was a naturally occurring virus even if it was a lab leak. No one who knows what they are talking about and isn't a dishonorable lying sack of excrement believes it was a result of genetic manipulation.
Because, while the emergence in the market seems like the most likely origin for SARS-CoV-2, it isn't close to definitive.
The thing that bothers me about this debate is that somehow China isn't responsible if Covid wasn't a lab leak. This is the second pandemic originating in China in the last 15 years, and we just got lucky with SARS 1. After that release China, a country that can regulate just about any behavior, did next to nothing to modify their wet markets or the thriving trade supporting the consumption of wild animals to boost health. I view the release from a lab if it did happen as an unfortunate mistake. Covid not released from the lab was probably preventable but China chose not to take steps to limit "traditional" health remedies.
OK. China fcked up, either by letting the virus escape a lab or by not regulating consumption of wild animals/"traditional" health remedies.
And what exactly do you propose non-Chinese governments or people do with this knowledge? Exclude China from world trade, a la North Korea? Invade China to exact revenge? All we can realistically do with this knowledge is tsk-tsk China - which we have been doing to varying degrees for years, even before Covid. Maybe we can kick out all the Chinese nationals in the country, even though there's zero evidence they were involved at all in the mismanagement or spread of Covid. But there really isn't anything constructive to do with the knowledge that China definitely did it. Fact still remains: we have very little power to force China to do anything different. (We can't even force North Korea to do anything different, and we've been trying for three-quarters of a century now.)
"Fact still remains: we have very little power to force China to do anything different."
Well, that's defeatist, and assumes facts very much not in evidence to boot. We absolutely *can* influence China (seeing as how China is a nation of humans with complexly interwoven cultural, economic, and political ties with the US and other nations as well, and not like a law of physics or something). It's certainly harder to influence China than it is, say, Denmark, but it's not impossible. After all, being big and powerful doesn't mean you're implacable, it just means that you're harder to bully on the stuff you really care about.
Additionally, as powerful as China is, I'm not sure that "avoiding better regulation of wet markets" is the hill Xi wants to die on.
The most obvious response would be a global repudiation of debts to China.
The "Spanish Flu" originated in Kansas.
As far as recent covid outbreaks, they happened in China, Middle East and Mexico, only the Covid one really took off worldwide. And new strains of Covid popped up everywhere.
Flu strains in south east Asia are studied so we know what vaccine(s) to make, since what usually hits there ends up in here a few months later and just in time for school/flu season.
Nearly one-fifth of the total human population resides in China. One would reasonably expect that about one-fifth of new human diseases would also originate in China.
I would tend to disagree with this. Do more human viruses originate from NYC than the whole of Arizona?
The answer is no.
The key is generally human proximity to wildlife and areas that were previously either untouched or rarely accessed beyond indigenous groups.
The thing that bothers me about this debate is that somehow China isn't responsible if Covid wasn't a lab leak.
Wouldn't that be a matter for international law? Is there a treaty somewhere that holds governments responsible for non-lab zoonotic spillover within their borders? I doubt it, but I'm all ears. Also, countries—especially gigantic and still rather poor countries—aren't as amenable to effective regulation targeting natural phenomena as your comment seems to imply. Even if China banned so-called wet markets, it's hardly a sure thing they'd vanish. Indoor smoking is banned in China, for instance, and Chinese people pay about as much heed to that as they do to regulations against dangerous driving or spitting on the sidewalk. This place is far more chaotic than Westerners realize. It's not rigid Maoist uniformity 24/7. It's often just the opposite (chaos, and utter contempt for rules).
So this just is not true.
1. China has regulated the wild animal trade. You pretty much cannot buy exotic animals for meat.
2. Wuhan is in Hubei. Hubei people are not particularly adventurous eaters. They 100% do not eat bat and you are unlikely to find rats, dogs, pangolins, etc. This is unlike Guangdong where they eat "anything with its back to the sky". If COVID came from animals in a wet market in Wuhan it was almost certainly something prosaic like pigeons or chickens.
3. The real issue here was the CPC cover up and the continuing refusal to release information and samples. The guilty flee when no man pursueth. That screams knowledge of guilt.
What about the emergence of swine flu in 2009 in the US. Which we had to rely on Mexico to warn us about after their very first death, despite there being multiple pervious deaths in the US and the virsu being relatively widespread n the US at that time. Or the big kahuna of them all, spanish influenza that originated in Kansas and was knowingly spread throughout the world by the US government.
If the US should extract revenge from china since 5 million people died as a result of a virus they couldn't do anything about, what penalty should the US pay for originating spanish influenza which killed 100, million. And bear in mind, the extra culpability the US government had for knowingly shipping thousands of infected individuals throughout the world at the beginning of that pandemic. And if that's too far in the past, what about the fact that the 2009 swine flu pandemic also originated in the US and the US never, ever warned anyone about it.
I haven't followed the issue closely, but two scenarios:
1 An animal hunter captures an animal, brings it to the Wuhan wet market and it's sold. The animal had the covid Sars-2 virus in a form transmitable to humans, which happens.
2 A virologist captures an animal, brings it to the Wuhan lab. The animal had the covid Sars-2 virus in a form transmitable to humans. On day 2 he goes to the Wuhan wet market for ingredients for a meal, and transmits the disease.
Question--can researchers distinguish between the two scenarios?
Isn't the issue more whether the virus was ever altered in the lab before it made the jump to humans, or whether it made the jump naturally?
Well, yes, that is the issue. But way too many people insinuate that the former *must* be true if the possibility of a lab leak is acknowledged.
How many, exactly is "way too many people?" Is it a number, or is it just too many for your personal taste?
When it comes to leaping to "It's proven!" from an opinion that says, "Maybe," then, yeah, I have a number. It's 1.
When it comes to leaping to "It's proven!" from an opinion that says, "Maybe," then, yeah, I have a number. It's 1.
Seems highly strawmannish. I see virtually no credible claims of "lab leak is impossible" save perhaps those emanating from the the CCP. Kevin's right: non-lab spillover remains the theory the vast majority of those in the virology community believe is most likely. Which is really the problem for folks like you. You want the lab leak to hold that position.
Your first question would be if there were any "animal hunters" bringing wild animals to the Wuhan wet market.
If you know anything about regional Chinese diets, you would know that that is vanishingly unlikely unless it was frogs, turtles, fish, etc. Certainly no pangolins, rats, bats, dogs, etc.
Scientists are fairly confident it was never altered by humans.
I think the general scientific concenses is that the ables was not altered in a lab because there are specific tell-tale signs of lab modifications on viruses and the original covid virus did not show any of thesse signs. It still could have come from the lab but it is unlikely to have been modified.
I'm stumped why the Department of Energy is weighing in on this. How does this fit within their brief?
Nukes -> Atomic Energy Agency -> Department of Energy
Weapons of mass destruction, including biological ones, have always fit alongside the expertise of the nukes agency, and they live in Energy now.
All sorts of research goes on in DOE-affiliated national labs, including work on infectious disease.
Yes. I only learned about that with this recent report. That said, according to the NYT, the DOE shopped their "low confidence" conclusion around to other federal agencies, and none found it compelling enough to change their minds.
I’ve done some research and determined that the Chinese government is almost as evil as the Russian government. I’m content to believe they released a virus which killed millions including my mother. So… fuck ‘em. It really doesn’t matter. The virus was a biological weapon released into the word by the evil Chinese. End of story.
So they're also responsible for cancer, auto accidents and mass shootings? Because that's consistent with your "reasoning."
You’re not very good at this enemy propaganda thing.
It would help to know what question was being asked, who was doing the evaluation, and what kind of data was being studied.
When climate change was first being studied, the motive was to see if we were entering another ice age. The report came back about too much CO2 in the atmosphere and predictions of global warming. Regan didn't like that conclusion, so commissioned another report--and got the same answer. So he tried again with people he appointed to get the answer he wanted.
Climate change due to excess CO2 was first predicted in the 19th century.
What I don't understand...at all!!!!....is what the pro-lab leak theory people want done about China, now or then?
China has vehemently denied this theory, then and now...
Do they want all trade with China to end? We already have cut them off from advanced chips and even the machinery to manufacture them...
So what do these people want? War with China?
I want to see some practical programs or answers from these complainers...
Because I don't think they have anything...anything at all.
And they should admit t his or set out their plan so others can scrutinize it.
If it was an accidental lab leak:
- It should be shut down temporarily
- Its operational protocols ought to be closely scrutinized and if necessary, revised
- All workers should be retrained and demonstrate understanding and compliance with protocols
- International standards should be created for the construction and operation of BSL facilities, then inspections required of all BSL facilities around the world, for compliance
If it was zoonotic transmission from a wet market:
- Species known to be reservoirs of SARS ought to be explicitly banned
- Chinese protocols should be required for periodic testing for constant surveillance
- Standards for operations of wet markets ought to be created and enforced by Chinese authorities
If all of these things were done now, I would care a lot less about the source of SARS-CoV-2.
"Standards for operations of wet markets ought to be created and enforced by Chinese authorities" China actually outlawed wet markets. Of course, the Chinese obey that law just as well as Americans obey the laws against heroin and other illegal drugs.
So what do these people want? War with China?
We have a winner!
I don’t think that, but who knows; some might. As I wrote above, it doesn’t matter. The Chinese government will not ever be trustworthy so there is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. All those who have enabled Chinese economic development in the apparently vain hope that the country would become a democracy with tolerance and broad civil rights, ought to be ashamed of themselves. To the extent that the Chinese government is a growing threat to world peace and prosperity, these enablers have been proven wrong.
It’s time to begin the process of decoupling ourselves from them. The Russian example is instructive in this context. It’s likely too late to prevent them from exercising their power in a dangerous way. Engagement has failed. If they choose to use violence to achieve something, we are not going to respond or protect others in any meaningful way. It’s too late.
There is value in demonstrating the mendacity of the government and using that evidence to enable our decoupling.
I assumed from your first comment you were being sarcastic. Now I realize that you are a complete imbecile.
They may only want someone to blame.
The need to blame someone, or a group of someones, is a very powerful motivator and leads to all kinds of terrible 'analysis' no matter who is doing the analysis.
Its hard to accept that nobody is to blame for a bad outcome. Someone needs to be fired, executed, demoted, screamed at, etc.
What does matter, and what can be done going forward, is issues of transparency in the face of "leaks" and other disasters.
Specifically, does it make sense to collaborate with China in any problematic space (biology, chemistry, nukes, weather modification, digital security, ...) where something *could* go wrong IF the immediate response of China to something going wrong will be to clam up and refuse to allow any sort of outside investigation into the issue?
The US, god knows, is hardly a shining light in this respect, but it's certainly a whole lot better. Right now, as regards China and covid-19, what, at all, has been learned in terms of doing better? Are procedures better at any location (virology institutes, markets, bat caves, ...)? Has anything changed?
The way this would have played out in the West is that once, say, four locations/institutions were considered possible sources, insofar as practical all four locations would have had procedures improved. It doesn't matter that the leak occurred from location A; if it reasonably could also have occurred from B, C, and D, then we need to ensure that next time, in fifteen years, it doesn't happen from B or C or D.
"The US, god knows, is hardly a shining light in this respect, but it's certainly a whole lot better. " But is it really. The US never warned the world about the swine flu pandemic of 2009 that originated in the US. In the 100 years since spanish influenza origi9nated at a hog farm in Kansas, nothing has been done to reduce the likelihood of it occurring again.
The most obvious immediate response would be a global repudiation of debts to China to partially recover the damages caused by COVID.
"Do they want all trade with China to end?: Yes. That's the whole point of the lie.
I suspect there's a certain amount of motivated reasoning in virologists concluding that virologists did not accidentally kill 7 million people.
Exactly!
Yes.
Also some virologists want to continue to cooperate with colleagues in China, and criticizing the Chinese government, even implicitly, makes it difficult.
I'm getting a real strong feeling of deja vu. Twenty years ago, the intelligence community told us they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and he intended to use them against America.
There is a bipartisan group of China hawks in government who fear that America will eventually fall behind China's military capabilities and if a conflict is inevitable, it's better to have it now rather than later. If you thought that Iraq was a clusterfuck, just wait until we go to war with China.
I have also read that China is on a existential demographic collapse that may be impossible to reverse.
I have also read that China is on a existential demographic collapse that may be impossible to reverse.
I don't know if it's truly "existential" but the signs of nasty demographic decline are there without a doubt. To me this reality suggests a "wait 'em out" strategy makes the most sense for the US. Keep calm, keep our powder dry, and get our own house in order (make our model as attractive as possibly globally).
But some US officials and politicians bizarrely seem to think it's in our national interest to have a conflict—quite possibly even an actual shooting war—as soon as possible. Speed up the moment of confrontation!
Why, it's almost as if domestic political considerations are turbo-charging China hawkery.
"signs of nasty demographic decline "
Are there real signs for the "nasty" part of this? That is, are there signs that some things get much worse as a result?
Check out this archived WaPo article. Fewer births would be a challenge for a normal country, but perhaps not an existential crisis. China's not a normal country:
https://archive.ph/c5E2m
Evidently FBI director Wray is taking a hardline that Covid-19 is an engineered bio weapon that was either accidentally or deliberately released by China : « You’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans,” Wray said of the coronavirus, “and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.” »
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/politics/wray-fbi-covid-origins-lab-china/index.html
Accidentally. Not deliberately.
You do not deliberately release a bioweapon domestically before you have a vaccine.
You do realize the lab was designed by the French.
That email did not shed anything new. The underlying argument re pangolins was there from early on. As it was then, and is now, this does not indicate that the variant was wild. What it did suggest was that the variant could have been circulating in the wild and could have come from a wet market dealing with pangolin meat.
As I said back in 2020, the virus was closer genetically -- and therefore nearer in age -- to wild bat samples from WIV that had previously been published.
I am concerned about the long-term memory of some of you.
The FBI weighs in: https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiMWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC11cy1jYW5hZGEtNjQ4MDY5MDPSATVodHRwczovL3d3dy5iYmMuY29tL25ld3Mvd29ybGQtdXMtY2FuYWRhLTY0ODA2OTAzLmFtcA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
Oh, they now do peer-review?
And most of the rest of the US government thinks the FBI is wrong. Personally, on biology, I'll take the words of biologists over the opinions of police officers and nuclear physicists.
" will be the discovery of an intermediate host animal that harbors the virus " that probably won't work at this point in time as the virus has jumped from human to many species of animals.