Thomas Fazi updates us at UnHerd on the “lab leak hypothesis” for the origin of COVID-19. The short version is that Jeffrey Sachs has co-authored a report calling for an investigation:
Considering the endless ways in which the pandemic and our response to it have changed the lives of every human being on the planet, it’s astonishing to consider how little is actually known about the origins of the virus. Two and half years on, we are still very much in the dark as to when, how and even where SARS-CoV-2 first made its appearance.
This isn’t because our efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery have proved fruitless, but rather because those efforts have been systematically thwarted by the world’s two most powerful governments: America and China. This is the mother of all Covid conspiracy theories — but it’s also true.
One of the main “conspiracy theorists†is none other than Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission. He is not your typical tinfoil-hat-wearing internet crank. Sachs recently co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calling for an independent inquiry into the virus’s origins. He believes there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary US public health agency, and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in order to cover up evidence that US-funded research in Wuhan may have played a role in the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
We’ll probably never know for sure. I can’t imagine the Chinese authorities cooperating fully on any study which might potentially reflect badly on China or the Chinese Communist Party.
If history is any gauge the virus probably arose naturally but things go against historical precedent every day. As I see we’ll probably never know for sure.
He believes there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary US public health agency, and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in order to cover up evidence that US-funded research in Wuhan may have played a role in the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Duh! Really! You mean the emails between Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins didn’t early on point to signs of collusion and cover-up between China and the NIH. The fact that Fauci connived, parsed his answers to Congress numerous times, secretly participated in risky gain of function experiments, in a Chinese lab that was known to be sloppy in exhibiting high safety standards, seems far afield from being grouped in the conspiracy theory realm.
Over at the Unz Review, Ron Unz has been promoting the theory that Covid was manufactured by USAMRIID at Ft Deterick, MD, and planted in Wuhan by US military participating in the International Military games in Wuhan in 2019. Lately he has been promoting a Dr Sachs, who led the Lancet group that studied Covid, and who claims it was made in a US lab.
This seems a little over the top. But we now know that after the fall of the USSR, the US (CIA?) took over all the old Soviet biowarfare labs in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, et al., and has used them to pursue research outlawed by UN treaty and US law.
The original NBC treaty was based on the recognition that bioweapons are uncontrollable, and blow-back on the user is a certainty. This was once common knowledge, but the decline in the cognitive abilities of Western Elites is apparent to everyone (sanctions on Russia), and Unz theory is not absurd, although it seems unlikely.
Pretty sure Sachs is an economist. Pretty sure he doesnt have a lot of expertise on viral illnesses.
“We’ll probably never know for sure.”
It took until 1999 to find the viral origin of HIV, over 18 years. It has taken many years to find the origins of other viral illnesses. The statistical evidence to date favors the origin as around the market.
Steve
Historically, the paddy rice system in East Asia has been the main source of influenza and some other viruses, like corona. The paddies are visited by wild bird, bats, cattle, pigs, chickens, people… Viruses in one species mutate and mix and match with those from others. The usual results are annual (or nearly so) outbreaks of chicken flu, swine flu and human flu. It is highly probable, if not certain, that covid came from this ecology.
That this well-known (for decades), well-established mechanism was dismissed out of hand by conspiracy activists says more about our public discourse than the science.
However, the regime in Washington is utterly corrupt, and nothing is beyond them.
It has also been argued that people living in close proximity with livestock and complete absence of food taboos in China contribute.
The genetic evidence indicates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not an engineered virus. See Andersen et al., The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, Nature Medicine 2020.
The genetic evidence also indicates that the virus crossed over more than once, close in time and space, which is very unlikely for an accidental release. See Pekar et al, The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2, Science 2022: “all of the circumstantial evidence so far points to more than one zoonotic event occurring in Huanan market in Wuhan, China, likely during November–December 2019”.
Finally, epidemiological evidence shows that there was more than one crossover event with their epicenter at the Huanan Market. See Worobey et al., The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, Science 2022.
You would have to assert that there were at least two lab leaks, with both of them immediately going to the Huanan Market. Crossover events from animals is so typical, that it takes special pleading to continue to assert otherwise with regards to COVID.
I don’t know given what we know now of SARS-COV2 and the amount of time passed how one can make a determinative conclusion on the origins of the virus.
We know that SARS-COV2 can infect deer, big cats (lions, tigers, leopards), non-human primates, minks, and bats.
At this point, if you found an animal infected with the closely related to virus in China/SouthEast Asia, I am skeptical one can prove the causality of evolution, i.e. this virus is descended from a common ancestor that went on to infect humans; or it is descended from a virus that humans spread to animals.
The rest of it to me seems using math has the problem of “garbage in/garbage out” since we don’t have a full collection of data from the earliest days of pandemic.
Even the location of Huanan Seafood Market and WIV makes it hard; they are only 17KM or 10 miles away from each other. Since both are on subway lines, there are goods many people who work in WIV live close to the Huanan Seafood Market.
There’s also no interest in actually figuring out the truth. Think of it from the Chinese government perspective — is it that much better for them if the cause was an accidental lab leak vs a zoological event at a market similar to SARS-COV1 (i.e. ignored warnings for 20 years). The research here is mostly people trying to prove its not a lab leak — but the US virology has a stake in proving its not a lab leak, considering their links to WIV and the consequences of findings the lab leaks is realistic.
CuriousOnlooker: I am skeptical one can prove the causality of evolution, i.e. this virus is descended from a common ancestor that went on to infect humans; or it is descended from a virus that humans spread to animals.
Multiple lines of evidence support that it spread from animals to humans.
CuriousOnlooker: Even the location of Huanan Seafood Market and WIV makes it hard; they are only 17KM or 10 miles away from each other.
Yes, but it didn’t spread from their residences or parks or grocery stores or even the nearby sandwich shop. It had multiple origins within the Huanan Market. Again, it takes special pleading to maintain the position that its a lab leak.
“Multiple lines of evidence support that it spread from animals to humans”
The lab leak theory also implies it spread from animals to humans (just that it happened in course of research). So its a spurious argument that paper proving it went from animals to humans implies its not a lab leak.
“Yes, but it didn’t spread from their residences or parks or grocery stores or even the nearby sandwich shop. It had multiple origins within the Huanan Market. Again, it takes special pleading to maintain the position that its a lab leak.”
Again, we don’t have the full data the Chinese government has — through I would say we have good data of what happened after China lockdown Wuhan in Jan 2021, but not of the period Sept-Nov 2020. And even the data the Chinese government has is not the full data. So again, garbage in, garbage out.
CuriousOnlooker: The lab leak theory also implies it spread from animals to humans (just that it happened in course of research).
But that doesn’t explain why there were multiple origins within the Huanan Market and no place else. The evidence is consistent with an animal origin within the Market, but not consistent with a lab leak where we would expect that if there were multiple sites of transference, they all wouldn’t be in the same place. You might want to actually look at the studies.
“But that doesn’t explain why there were multiple origins within the Huanan Market and no place else”
That indicates close contact between multiple people and multiple animals, possibly in unsanitary conditions. Which is plausible to occur in a lab as well.
You could postulate this actually indicates its more likely to be in a lab. After all, the WIV was specifically collecting and collected a large variety of bats and other species and samples of such who are known possible carriers of the coronavirus. They put them in an environment where many workers were in close contact with these samples. On the other hand, the Huanan Seafood Market would have a smaller collection of such animals (so less likelihood of multiple origins).
The key point is looking at the studies is the authors depended on what data the Chinese government has shared. The authors presume those early cases at the Seafood Market were the only cases — but how do they prove that; they can’t; they are accepting the data the Chinese shared as the starting point. The problem is that’s not the data the Chinese government does/did have and its not the actual data of what happened. The WHO has said China hasn’t shared the full dataset. Garbage in / garbage out.
CuriousOnlooker: That indicates close contact between multiple people and multiple animals, possibly in unsanitary conditions. Which is plausible to occur in a lab as well.
If someone or a number of people were infected in the lab, and if there was only one origin, then sure, it could have come from the lab. But with multiple origins, we would expect the origins to be scattered around the lab. But that is not what we see.
“But with multiple origins, we would expect the origins to be scattered around the lab. But that is not what we see.”
The lab collects many specimens of coronaviruses. There are many workers. If one worker is in a laboratory environment where they were infected; the chance another worker is exposed to similar conditions while working on a different specimen is higher then background.
In my mind there’s the forensics of the virus and the behavior of some of the scientists (and political beings, eg Fauci) who would potentially be implicated in a lab leak scenario and both of these raise some suspicions.
From listening to interviews with Sachs it seems like the latter has convinced him that there’s a coverup going on- especially the duplicitous behavior of Peter Daszak. There’s a bit of viral forensics in there too, mainly in that some virologists in early 2020 immediately noted the unlikely furin cleavage site but then quickly backpedalled as though they’d been strong armed into a consensus view that they were 100% certain this was a naturally evolved virus.
I admit I don’t know enough about virology and epidemiology to follow the phylogenetic research noted by Zachriel. I do see that the papers were only recently published in a peer reviewed journal, despite being publicized via the NYT months earlier. That itself (putting it out in the public domain before vetting by fellow scientists) seems a bit off to me, but will withhold judgment until feedback comes from the scientific community now. CO notes a major weakness, I think- that they were, of necessity, using Chinese provided data.
LOL
Zach – you, as always, cherry pick your sources, then cut and paste. We have no idea what the true source is. There are dueling views.
But we have a very good idea that Fauci et al have been very, um, lawyerly in their testimony.
This thing stinks.
I tend to think that the zoological origin is most likely, but I think Zachriel exaggerates the strength of that conclusion.
The major problem is that no animal or intermediate reservoir has been found as the source of the virus, and I believe it’s still the case that there’s no data on the precursor strain. The closest strains were at the Wuhan lab and originated from Yunan province, which is far from Wuhan.
So there’s nothing definitive linking it to the market – the primary evidence is the grouping of cases at and near the market and the association of previous outbreaks to similar markets.
Plus, there is the issue that the animal reservoir for most sars virus is bats and pangolins, which weren’t sold at the Wuhan market.
These unknowns means that there are alternatives besides the market or the lab to consider. For instance, someone could have caught it from outside Wuhan and brought it back and infected people at the market. This could include a researcher from the Wuhan Lab since they would go collect samples from animals around the country to study and bring them back for analysis. They could have become unknowingly infected in the field.
There is the mysterious case of Huang Yanling, who was a Wuhan lab worker who some claimed to be patient zero (without much evidence, it seems) that is still “missing” after two years. China’s ability to “disappear” people is deeply concerning.
Andy China’s lack of transparency certainly isn’t helping, and like Curious, I do not trust their data completely. And, of course, they’ve prevented any investigation, so we’ll likely never know.
Which is unfortunate because this disease killed millions, and we owe it to the dead to determine as best as possible the origin so that future pandemics might be detected earlier or avoided completely.
Let’s be brutally honest. Anybody who expresses 100% confidence that they know the origin of COVID-19 is either a fool, a charlatan, or a quack. That’s true of the natural zoönotic origin hypothesis, the lab leak hypothesis, the biological weapon hypothesis, or any other. IMO the odds favor the natural hypothesis but favorable odds aren’t 100% confidence.
Andy: So there’s nothing definitive linking it to the market – the primary evidence is the grouping of cases at and near the market and the association of previous outbreaks to similar markets.
That’s called linking. It’s not conclusive, but it is strong circumstantial evidence.
Andy: For instance, someone could have caught it from outside Wuhan and brought it back and infected people at the market.
That is not consistent with the evidence, which is that there were two (or more) separate lineages emerging within the market, but it would be consistent with zoonotic origins of other viruses.
Andy: China’s lack of transparency certainly isn’t helping
Agreed.