In a piece at Medium which is a response of sort to Nicholas Wade’s post on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 Donald G. McNeil Jr., initially hostile to the “lab leak” hypothesis treats the subject very well but with a somewhat scattershot approach that is hard to excerpt. Basically, he’s warming to the notion, as is suggested in his peroration:
There is no proof of a leak.
But the Occam’s Razor argument — what’s the likeliest explanation, animal or lab? — keeps shifting in the direction of the latter.
concluding:
The whole world, China included, needs a hard answer, whoever is to blame — so we can prevent this from happening again.
that, along with the grave unlikelihood of China’s actually being more forthcoming, is the reason that I think that the best way of getting to the truth is through a multi-trillion dollar class action suit against China in U. S. courts. You don’t need incontrovertible evidence to prevail—just the preponderance of the evidence and wouldn’t that motivate the Chinese authorities to bring forth all of the evidence supporting the animal origin theory or contradicting the lab leak theory that they have?
If it is for the purposes of preparing for the next pandemic (it is impossible to prevent); I would argue we have all the information we need.
For zoonotic transmission, given evolution, history, one must assume that future pandemics by zoonotic transmission will occur.
For “lab leak”, even if the virus was proven to have a zoonotic origin, it is clear in the last few months that the experts in the field believe it is technically possible for a lab leak leading to a pandemic.
Given that, actions to ameliorate the dangers from both seem warranted.
Every other SARS virus and all the influenza viruses are/were products of the East Asia paddy system. The paddies are regularly occupied by people, buffalo, pigs, chickens, aquatic wild birds, bats, snakes…every damn thing you can think of. The viruses mix and match, mutate, jump from species to species, all over and over again. Once or twice a year, you get a pandemic. Most are relatively mild, but every once in a while you a Spanish Flu, which was very much more serious than Covid-19.
The natural source of respiratory viruses has been well-known to medicine for many decades.
So if you want to dismiss the natural source, you have a very high burden of proof. And so far, no one has done that. The speculations that China did it are just pathetic.
If you like conspiracy theories, I like the one put out by China’s FM:
Covid-19 was created by the US Army biological warfare lab (USAMRIID) in Ft. Detrick, MD, and it was planted in Wuhan province by US Army athletes participating in the International Military Games held in Wuhan in 2019.
Now that is a conspiracy theory worthy of belief, especially after Ruby Ridge, Waco, November 3rd, January 6th, Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq WMD, Assange, novichok, the Kennedy assassinations, …
I linked to a similar article by someone actually involved in gene studies a week ago. McNeil is a decent writer but has no special expertise.
Steve