Novem Linguae (talk | contribs) →What the sources say: adjust highlight |
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*'''''<u>Chinese labs have had accidents before and not covered them up</u>''''' - There was a [[Severe acute respiratory syndrome#Laboratory accidents|lab accident in China in 2004]] involving [[SARS]]. The laboratory that had the accident did not cover it up.{{r|PMC7969828|p=§1.5}}<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|4.3}} |
*'''''<u>Chinese labs have had accidents before and not covered them up</u>''''' - There was a [[Severe acute respiratory syndrome#Laboratory accidents|lab accident in China in 2004]] involving [[SARS]]. The laboratory that had the accident did not cover it up.{{r|PMC7969828|p=§1.5}}<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|4.3}} |
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*'''''<u>Wuhan was likely not the origin</u>''''' - Wuhan's wet market is no longer thought to be the origin of the virus. The crossover point cannot be said for sure yet, but there is evidence that it occurred in the countryside in [[Hubei]] province. There are confirmed infections of people that occurred before anyone was infected in Wuhan, and the infections were in folks that had not traveled to Wuhan recently. This is tricky to pin down exactly, due to the Chinese government not allowing access to blood bank samples, and due to high false positive rates on COVID tests, but this evidence should not be ignored.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|4.4}} |
*'''''<u>Wuhan was likely not the origin</u>''''' - Wuhan's wet market is no longer thought to be the origin of the virus. The crossover point cannot be said for sure yet, but there is evidence that it occurred in the countryside in [[Hubei]] province. There are confirmed infections of people that occurred before anyone was infected in Wuhan, and the infections were in folks that had not traveled to Wuhan recently. This is tricky to pin down exactly, due to the Chinese government not allowing access to blood bank samples, and due to high false positive rates on COVID tests, but this evidence should not be ignored.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|4.4}} |
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*'''''<u>Viruses typically cross over rurally, then are first detected in cities</u>''''' - Many previous outbreaks have shown that viruses often emerge or cross-over from animals to humans in suburban or rural settings, only to be first seen in an urban center. Lots of people clustered together makes a great setting for the slightly more rare presentation to become obvious. Historical examples of viruses appearing to emerge in an urban center, but later being confirmed to have originated in rural areas, include the [[List of Ebola outbreaks|1995 Ebolavirus outbreak]] in [[Kikwit]],<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hall|first1=Ryan C.W.|last2=Hall|first2=Richard C.W.|last3=Chapman|first3=Marcia J.|date=2008|title=The 1995 Kikwit Ebola outbreak: lessons hospitals and physicians can apply to future viral epidemics|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7132410/|journal=General Hospital Psychiatry|volume=30|issue=5|pages=446–452|doi=10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2008.05.003|issn=0163-8343|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Khan|first1=Ali S.|last2=Tshioko|first2=F. Kweteminga|last3=Heymann|first3=David L.|last4=Le Guenno|first4=Bernard|last5=Nabeth|first5=Pierre|last6=Kerstiëns|first6=Barbara|last7=Fleerackers|first7=Yon|last8=Kilmarx|first8=Peter H.|last9=Rodier|first9=Guenael R.|last10=Nkuku|first10=Okumi|last11=Rollin|first11=Pierre E.|date=February 1999|title=The Reemergence of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995|url=https://doi.org/10.1086%2F514306|journal=The Journal of Infectious Diseases|volume=179|issue=s1|pages=S76–S86|doi=10.1086/514306|issn=0022-1899|access-date=8 June 2021|first16=Stuart T.|last15=Tomori|last12=Sanchez|first12=Anthony|first13=Sherif R.|last14=Swanepoel|first14=Robert|first15=Oyewale|last17=Peters|last16=Nichol|first19=Thomas G.|last19=Ksiazek|first18=J. J.|last18=Muyembe‐Tamfum|first17=C. J.|last13=Zaki}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Garrett|first1=Laurie|title=The Deathly Ebola Outbreak in Zaire|work=Vanity Fair|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1995/08/ebola-africa-outbreak|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref> the [[2002–2004 SARS outbreak|2002 outbreak]] of [[SARS|SARS-1]] in [[Foshan]],<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wang|first1=L. F.|last2=Eaton|first2=B. T.|date=2007|title=Bats, civets and the emergence of SARS|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17848070/|journal=Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology|volume=315|pages=325–344|doi=10.1007/978-3-540-70962-6_13|issn=0070-217X|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Xu|first1=Rui-Heng|last2=He|first2=Jian-Feng|last3=Evans|first3=Meirion R.|last4=Peng|first4=Guo-Wen|last5=Field|first5=Hume E|last6=Yu|first6=De-Wen|last7=Lee|first7=Chin-Kei|last8=Luo|first8=Hui-Min|last9=Lin|first9=Wei-Sheng|last10=Lin|first10=Peng|last11=Li|first11=Ling-Hui|date=2004-6|title=Epidemiologic Clues to SARS Origin in China|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323155|journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases|volume=10|issue=6|pages=1030–1037|doi=10.3201/eid1006.030852|issn=1080-6040|last13=Lin|first13=Jin-Yan|last14=Schnur|first14=Alan|first12=Wen-Jia|last12=Liang}}</ref> and the [[2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak|2012 outbreak]] of [[MERS]] in [[Jeddah]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Han|first1=Hui-Ju|last2=Yu|first2=Hao|last3=Yu|first3=Xue-Jie|date=2016-2|title=Evidence for zoonotic origins of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7087374/|journal=The Journal of General Virology|volume=97|issue=Pt 2|pages=274–280|doi=10.1099/jgv.0.000342|issn=0022-1317|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Zaki|first1=Ali M.|last2=van Boheemen|first2=Sander|last3=Bestebroer|first3=Theo M.|last4=Osterhaus|first4=Albert D. M. E.|last5=Fouchier|first5=Ron A. M.|date=2012-11-07|title=Isolation of a Novel Coronavirus from a Man with Pneumonia in Saudi Arabia|url=https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa1211721|journal=http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1211721|language=EN|doi=10.1056/nejmoa1211721|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=2014-05-13|title=The Camels and the Contagion|language=en|work=Science|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140513-mers-saudi-camels-health-contagion-spillover-bats-disease|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Oboho|first1=Ikwo K.|last2=Tomczyk|first2=Sara M.|last3=Al-Asmari|first3=Ahmad M.|last4=Banjar|first4=Ayman A.|last5=Al-Mugti|first5=Hani|last6=Aloraini|first6=Muhannad S.|last7=Alkhaldi|first7=Khulud Z.|last8=Almohammadi|first8=Emad L.|last9=Alraddadi|first9=Basem M.|last10=Gerber|first10=Susan I.|last11=Swerdlow|first11=David L.|date=2015-02-26|title=2014 MERS-CoV Outbreak in Jeddah — A Link to Health Care Facilities|url=https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1408636|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|volume=372|issue=9|pages=846–854|doi=10.1056/NEJMoa1408636|issn=0028-4793|access-date=8 June 2021|first13=Tariq A.|last13=Madani|first12=John T.|last12=Watson}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Dudas|first1=Gytis|last2=Carvalho|first2=Luiz Max|last3=Rambaut|first3=Andrew|last4=Bedford|first4=Trevor|date=2018-01-16|title=MERS-CoV spillover at the camel-human interface|url=https://elifesciences.org/articles/31257|journal=eLife|volume=7|pages=e31257|doi=10.7554/eLife.31257|issn=2050-084X|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ferguson|first1=Neil M.|last2=Kerkhove|first2=Maria D. Van|date=2014-02-01|title=Identification of MERS-CoV in dromedary camels|url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(13)70691-1/fulltext?rss=yes&code=lancet-site|journal=The Lancet Infectious Diseases|language=English|volume=14|issue=2|pages=93–94|doi=10.1016/S1473-3099(13)70691-1|issn=1473-3099|access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref> |
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*'''''<u>1–7 million people a year are infected with bat coronaviruses<ref>{{Cite web|last=Barclay|first=Eliza|date=2020-04-23|title=Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab|url=https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus-china|access-date=2021-06-08|website=Vox|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident|access-date=2021-06-08|website=NPR.org|language=en}}</ref></u>''''' - There is constant transmission of coronaviruses in South China from bats to humans, and it affects millions of people a year. |
*'''''<u>1–7 million people a year are infected with bat coronaviruses<ref>{{Cite web|last=Barclay|first=Eliza|date=2020-04-23|title=Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab|url=https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus-china|access-date=2021-06-08|website=Vox|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident|access-date=2021-06-08|website=NPR.org|language=en}}</ref></u>''''' - There is constant transmission of coronaviruses in South China from bats to humans, and it affects millions of people a year. |
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*'''''<u>[[Occam's razor]]</u>''''' - Occam's razor states we should assume the simplest explanation first. What's more likely: somebody in south China was exposed to a bat, or a virus was able to escape a [[BSL4]] lab? Many people are exposed to bats in south China every day, whereas lab leaks are rare, and a lab leak of a novel pathogen would be unprecedented.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web|date=2021-05-31|title=The origin of SARS-CoV-2, revisited {{!}} Science-Based Medicine|url=https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-revisited/|access-date=2021-06-01|website=sciencebasedmedicine.org|language=en-US}}</ref> |
*'''''<u>[[Occam's razor]]</u>''''' - Occam's razor states we should assume the simplest explanation first. What's more likely: somebody in south China was exposed to a bat, or a virus was able to escape a [[BSL4]] lab? Many people are exposed to bats in south China every day, whereas lab leaks are rare, and a lab leak of a novel pathogen would be unprecedented.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web|date=2021-05-31|title=The origin of SARS-CoV-2, revisited {{!}} Science-Based Medicine|url=https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-revisited/|access-date=2021-06-01|website=sciencebasedmedicine.org|language=en-US}}</ref> |
Revision as of 22:37, 8 June 2021
Top quality medical sources don't talk much about the COVID-19 lab leak idea, which is strong evidence that it is WP:FRINGE. When it is talked about in top quality sources (see list of quotes below), those sources mention the lab leak as "highly unlikely", "extremely unlikely", "massive online speculations", and "speculations, rumours, and conspiracy theories" (if they even mention it).
This is a rare case of the academic literature completely disagreeing with a lot of the regular news media, which sadly has led to much confusion and debate. Governments and the media have tried to politicize the issue in order to blame certain countries, making accusations against China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology without strong evidence.
The origin of a human disease is a complex topic. While some might claim ambiguity about what exactly is a biomedical topic, WP:RS strongly suggests that academic peer-reviewed literature, when available, is the best source for all claims and not just biomedical ones.[1] This naturally leads to the use of WP:MEDRS, a thorough standard whose appropriate application in this context ensures that only the best sources, from experts with relevant expertise, are used when discussing the lab leak theory in Wikipedia articles.
What the sources say
Top quality, WP:MEDRS sources
Mention of the lab leak
Even though this topic is FRINGE, it is generating enough publicity that MEDRS sources are finally starting to mention it.
In light of social media speculation about possible laboratory manipulation and deliberate and/or accidental release of SARS-CoV-2, Andersen et al. theorize about the virus’ probable origins, emphasizing that the available data argue overwhelmingly against any scientific misconduct or negligence (Andersen et al., 2020)
In their commentary they wrote “there are speculations, rumours and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin” and that “some people have alleged that the human SARS-CoV-2 was leaked directly from a laboratory in Wuhan where a bat CoV (RaTG13) was recently reported”. However, authors have not cited any authenticated source or literature that has claimed the “laboratory engineering”.
Le infezioni in medicina (Italian), September 1, 2020[3]
Another unconfirmed hypothesis that has received mixed response is the possibility of the virus originating in Wuhan’s Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, located just 300 yards away from Wuhan’s animal market or the Wuhan Institute of Virology located eight miles away from the animal market. Conspiracy theories about a possible accidental leak from either of these laboratories known to be experimenting with bats and bat CoVs that has shown some structural similarity to human SARS-CoV-2 has been suggested, but largely dismissed by most authorities.
Postgraduate Medical Journal, February 1, 2021[4]
Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific targeted research.
Similarly and connected to this hypothesis is also the one including the possibility of transmission through the trade of frozen cold-chain products.
There we are making the difference between the introduction of the virus into the human population and the possibility of the circulation of the virus through long-distance and through different settings or the introduction of the virus into a particular setting like a market for example.
Then the hypothesis of a direct spill-over from an original animal source into the human population is also a possible pathway and is also generating recommendation for future studies.
However, the findings suggest that the laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain introduction of the virus into the human population and therefore is not a hypothesis that will imply to suggest future studies into our work to support our future work into the understanding of the origin of the virus.
World Health Organization, February 9, 2021[5]
Despite these massive online speculations, scientific evidence does not support this accusation of laboratory release theory. Yet, it is difficult and time‐consuming to rule out the laboratories as the original source completely. It is highly unlikely that SARS‐CoV‐2 was accidentally released from a laboratory since no direct ancestral virus is identified in the current database. The complete genome of SARS‐CoV‐2 is deposited in the public database shortly after the outbreaks based on advanced next generation sequencing technologies. There is also no record of laboratory accidents at the WIV, and the former SARS‐CoV accident did not occur at the WIV. Additionally, a recent study further supported the natural origin of SARS‐CoV‐2 from viruses found in Rhinolophus sp. However, an independent forensic investigation is probably the only course of action to prove or disprove this speculation.
Reviews in Medical Virology, February 14, 2021[6]
Another hypothesis is the accidental infection of laboratory staff working on naturally occurring Sarbecoviruses. Accidents happen and have already been reported during the SARS epidemic in Taiwan, Singapore and China (Webster, 2004; WHO, 2004). This is not limited to SARS-CoV (Heymann et al., 2004). When it happened in Beijing in 2004, the information was immediately released and an investigation involving both WHO and Chinese governmental agencies was conducted, patients were identified and treated (WHO, 2004). There is today no evidence that such an accident had happened with SARS-CoV-2. Because of the incubation period of COVID-19, the weak symptoms, the significant rate of asymptomatic patients and the low virulence (with an estimated fatality rate of 3.26%, but more likely around 1% to 2% which is significantly lower than SARS-CoV with 9.6%), an accident could have easily remained unnoticed. But staff members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology have all been tested negative indicating that no accident occurred there (Cohen, 2020). One must remember that SARS-CoV-2 was never found in the wild and that RaTG13 does not exist as real virus but instead only as a sequence in a computer (Zhou et al., 2020a; Ge et al., 2016). It is a virtual virus which thus cannot leak from a laboratory. This hypothesis has been considered as “extremely unlikely” by the official WHO investigation team (Dyer, 2021). Therefore, although a laboratory accident can never be definitively excluded, there is currently no evidence to support it.
Infection, Genetics and Evolution, March 18, 2021[7]
No mention of the lab leak
Many other review papers do not mention the lab leak at all. Their statements show that the prevailing view within the scientific community is that of natural, zoonotic origin.
More details
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Emerging Microbes & Infections, March 2021.[8]
Advances in Virus Research, April 2021.[9]
The Lancet. Respiratory Medicine, May 2021.[10]
Reviews in Medical Virology, November 2020.[11] |
Low quality, non-MEDRS sources
The following sources are not WP:MEDRS quality and should not be used.
- Medical primary sources (studies, clinical trials)
- Comments,[12] editorials,[13] news,[14] or letters[15] in publications like Nature and Science. They are of a lower caliber than scholarly journal articles.
- Academic journals not related to a relevant field. (Examples of relevant fields include medicine, virology, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, and ecology.)
- Journals not indexed by MEDLINE
- Preprints (WP:SELFPUBLISH)
- Popular press (Such as regular newspapers and WP:NEWSORGS. One reason we have MEDRS is because the mainstream media is notorious for getting medical information wrong.)
- Governments (Because they engage in blatant politicking and disinformation on this topic. See below.)
The likely origin of COVID-19
The strongest hypothesis at the moment is that COVID originated in horseshoe bats in caves in China, and jumped naturally to humans, possibly through an intermediate species.[16]
Horseshoe bats are a well-known reservoir of coronaviruses, hosting around 47 variants of coronavirus.[17] Most of these variants are not harmful to humans, but every once in awhile, one of these variants will jump to intermediate hosts or to humans. Often spurred to mutate further by this jump to a new species, the coronaviruses that happen to mutate in a way that makes them harmful to humans become dangerous and trigger outbreaks.
This origin and vector are nothing surprising or new to scientists. SARS (a deadly human coronavirus) and SADS (a deadly pig coronavirus) both originated in China from horseshoe bats in the last 20 years. As one Wikipedian put it, "Most virologists, evolutionary biologists, and ecologists working with viruses agree that the virus likely spilled over into humans under natural circumstances, as has been the case for every other novel pathogen in history."
In the presence of this strong, natural, and likely origin of the virus, and in the absence of any forensic evidence suggesting otherwise, it is unlikely that COVID originated from a lab leak or from imported frozen food.
Arguments against lab leak
This section contains personal opinions and original research. You've been warned.
Science
Against bio-engineering or gain of function
- Fingerprints - SARS-CoV-2 has no fingerprints of genetic engineering or human alteration. If it had been altered, we'd be able to detect it. There would be detectable patterns in the mutations, splice sites, and transposon insertion sites. Also, statistics could be used to look for abnormalities.[18]: 2.2
- SARS-CoV-2 is a weird virus - If a virologist were to genetically engineer a bio-weapon, they would not design it the way SARS-CoV-2 is designed. There are parts of the virus that are inefficient. The polybasic cleavage site is poorly designed, making it difficult for proteases to detect and cut it. The spike protein is promiscuous, binding to cells from many different species rather than just humans. These are all hints that SARS-CoV-2 developed in nature, and not in a laboratory.[18]: 2.3 [19]
- Passaging in animals - Too time-consuming, too expensive, too many virologists needed, and too impossible to keep secret to develop SARS-CoV-2 this way. The virus would also look completely different than it does. The virus would also be targeted to and dangerous for whatever animal it was passaged in, and not nearly as dangerous to humans.[18]: 3.1
- Passaging in a petri dish - Too time-consuming, too expensive, too many virologists needed, and too impossible to keep secret to develop SARS-CoV-2 this way. The virus would also look completely different than it does. Being grown in a lab, with no host animal immune response putting pressure on the virus to maintain its defenses, causes obvious and detectable differences in the number and placement of O-linked glycosylations.[18]: 3.2
- Speeding up the mutation rate - Increasing the mutation rate above the ideal rate used in nature causes mutagenic catastrophe. Mutagenic catastrophe is the creation of a bunch of inert, broken viruses called defective interfering particles (DEPs) that do not reproduce, that compete with healthy viruses, and that alert the host's immune system. Therefore, it is not possible to speed up the development of a bioweapon or gain of function research faster than the mutation rate in nature.[18]: 3.3
- RaTG13 is not fake - Li-Meng Yan's preprints that argue that RaTG13 was "faked" as part of a conspiracy to support natural origin have been discredited. Scientists have double checked RaTG13's final sequence against raw sequence data submitted to public databases, and found no irregularities.[20]
- Bio-engineering a deadly virus would require human testing - Virology is not advanced enough for a virologist to simply decide to make a virus more deadly to humans. It would require a cycle of trying something, testing it on a human, seeing if they got sick, then repeating. It would be very difficult to conceal human testing and casualties.[20]
- Chimeric vs mosaic - A 2015 paper often cited by pro-lab leak folks discusses the creation of a chimeric virus. SARS-CoV-2 is a mosaic virus. Additionally, the creation of chimeric viruses is routine, fairly safe, and is helpful in learning about viruses and in developing vaccines.[18]: 2.1
- Li-Meng Yan's preprints have been debunked - Virologist Li-Meng Yan is the whistleblower that first published the lab leak idea. In her preprints, she argues that SARS-CoV-2 did not emerge naturally in a "spillover from animals", but rather was produced in a laboratory, and she goes on to give scientific arguments for this.[21][22] Her papers were not peer-reviewed, and were described by virologists as "non-scientific",[23] "junk science", and written to spread "political propaganda".[24] Peer-reviewed reviews of her papers were published that thoroughly disagreed with her scientific arguments, and provided strong scientific counter-arguments.[25][26][27]
Against a lab leak
- The Wuhan Institute of Virology is highly respected - Well-funded BSL4's such as WIV are not scary or concerning. The United States helped to train WIV staff in biosecurity, and the WIV's biosecurity practices have been independently certified by French inspectors.[18]: 4.1 There are zero records of laboratory accidents at this particular laboratory.[6]
- WIV's viruses are closely tracked - Bat samples are usually duplicated (parallel analysis), with one set of samples sent to labs in other countries, before it is sequenced. Therefore, it would not be possible to conceal the collection and storage of a virus at WIV. There is oversight of all the viruses stored at WIV.[18]: 4.2
- The first people to die from COVID had no connection to WIV - In previous laboratory accidents, the first folks infected had a direct connection to the laboratory. They were usually workers. In this case, none of the first identified cases of COVID occurred in folks that could be traced back to WIV.[18]: 4.3
- Lab leaks have been decreasing over time - As international standards such as BSL3 and BSL4 have become the norm, the number and severity of lab leaks has decreased.[18]: 4.3
- Chinese labs have had accidents before and not covered them up - There was a lab accident in China in 2004 involving SARS. The laboratory that had the accident did not cover it up.[7]: §1.5 [18]: 4.3
- Wuhan was likely not the origin - Wuhan's wet market is no longer thought to be the origin of the virus. The crossover point cannot be said for sure yet, but there is evidence that it occurred in the countryside in Hubei province. There are confirmed infections of people that occurred before anyone was infected in Wuhan, and the infections were in folks that had not traveled to Wuhan recently. This is tricky to pin down exactly, due to the Chinese government not allowing access to blood bank samples, and due to high false positive rates on COVID tests, but this evidence should not be ignored.[18]: 4.4
- Viruses typically cross over rurally, then are first detected in cities - Many previous outbreaks have shown that viruses often emerge or cross-over from animals to humans in suburban or rural settings, only to be first seen in an urban center. Lots of people clustered together makes a great setting for the slightly more rare presentation to become obvious. Historical examples of viruses appearing to emerge in an urban center, but later being confirmed to have originated in rural areas, include the 1995 Ebolavirus outbreak in Kikwit,[28][29][30] the 2002 outbreak of SARS-1 in Foshan,[31][32] and the 2012 outbreak of MERS in Jeddah.[33][34][35][36][37][38]
- 1–7 million people a year are infected with bat coronaviruses[39][40] - There is constant transmission of coronaviruses in South China from bats to humans, and it affects millions of people a year.
- Occam's razor - Occam's razor states we should assume the simplest explanation first. What's more likely: somebody in south China was exposed to a bat, or a virus was able to escape a BSL4 lab? Many people are exposed to bats in south China every day, whereas lab leaks are rare, and a lab leak of a novel pathogen would be unprecedented.[41]
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Per the Sagan standard, there is no reason that something as extraordinary as a lab leak of a novel pathogen should be taken seriously unless extraordinarily good evidence is provided. So far, the strongest lab leak evidence is that there happens to be a virology lab in the same city as the outbreak. This is no smoking gun.
- Size of WIV's library of bat viruses - The number of bat viruses in nature far exceeds the number of bat viruses collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[20]
Against both
- Lab leak conspiracy theories are nothing new - There is a long history of conspiracy theorists falsely blaming pandemics on lab leaks or bio-engineering. This has occurred with SARS, Ebola, HIV, and H1N1.[20]
- It takes a very long time to prove "natural origin" - It will be awhile before a "smoking gun" is found confirming the origin species of SARS-CoV-2. It took a decade to confirm the origin species for SARS. It still hasn't been found for Ebola. This elusiveness breeds conspiracy theories, which remain disprovable for years.[20]
- Natural origin is simple and explains everything - Its requirements are very simple. It simply requires "for biology to behave as it always has, for a family of viruses that have done this before to do it again."[19]
- Lab leak and bio-engineering require a colossal conspiracy - It would require "a colossal cover-up and the silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year."[19]
Politics
- USA supports the theory that gives China the most blame - It's an interesting coincidence that of the many theories, USA (especially under the Trump administration, but also under Biden[42]) has supported and amplified the lab leak theory, the theory that gives China the most blame. Perhaps it's not a coincidence. Perhaps politicians are trying to cast blame specifically on China, for nefarious reasons.
- China supports the theories that give China the least blame - It's an interesting coincidence that China advocates for the theories that give China the least blame, such as the frozen food hypothesis and the Fort Detrick lab leak hypothesis[43][44][45]. These explanations both happen to leave China blameless for the pandemic.
- Scapegoating - Politically, it is attractive to blame some other country for the pandemic, rather than a country taking responsibility for its own poor response. For most of the pandemic, the United States has had the most total COVID deaths of any country in the world. This creates motivation for American politicians to deflect American citizen's anger from themselves, to a scapegoat.
- Li-Meng Yan's work was amplified by shady people - Virologist Li-Meng Yan is the whistleblower that first published the lab leak idea. Republican strategist Steve Bannon, anti-China YouTuber Wang Dinggang, and billionaire Guo Wengui (owner of conspiracy theory[46] media network G-news) played a major role in amplifying and publicizing Yan's ideas. They funded her, flew her to the United States, arranged appearances for her on right-wing television shows, and provided her with coaches and lawyers. The fingerprints of these political operatives[47], exiles[48], and fraudsters[49] is a red flag. If this were mainstream science, there would be a very different set of fingerprints.
More details about Li-Meng Yan, Steve Bannon, Wang Dinggang, Guo Wengui
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Here is a rough history of where the lab leak came from. It all seems to have started with Li-Meng Yan. PhD in ophthalmology (no degree in virology or any related field), co-author of papers such as "Pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters" published in Nature (which, BTW, concluded that SARS-CoV-2 has a high nucleotide identity to SARS-related coronaviruses detected in horseshoe bats, something that Li-Meng Yan now denies.) She did work at the Wuhan Institute -- one of the world’s top virology labs, but was fairly new to the field and was hired for her experience with lab animals. Li-Meng Yan appears to have been the first person to claim that Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Enter Wang Dinggang, the psuedonym of the anonymous author of a US-based Chinese-language YouTube channel known for criticizing the Chinese government. He told his followers that SARS-CoV-2 had been deliberately released by the Chinese Communist Party, but refused to name a source. Wang Dinggang is associated with Stephen Bannon. Bannon is a former adviser to Donald Trump. Wang Dinggang has close associations with and appears to be funded by Guo Wengui, (aka Miles Guo, aka Miles Kwok) a fugitive Chinese billionaire. Wang Dinggang has promoted multiple conspiracy theories in the past, none of which turned out to be true. Bannon was arrested on Guo Wengui's yacht this summer in an otherwise unrelated case. After they got wind of Li-Meng Yan's accusations (most likely through Wang Dinggang), Stephen Bannon and Guo Wengui put Li-Meng Yan on a plane to the United States, gave her a place to stay and an undisclosed amount of cash, coached her on media appearances, hired language coaches and lawyers for her, and helped her secure interviews with popular conservative television hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs who have shows on Fox. They also asked Li-Meng Yan to write two papers, which were published as preprints with no peer review:
The papers supposedly have three co-authors, but the names are fake. In an extremely unusual move, they did not disclose the fact that they were using pseudonyms. Li-Meng Yan's papers bear a strong resemblance to blogs first published on G News (owned by Guo Wengui). They contain paragraph after paragraph of identical theories and similar phrasing to the blogs, with some lines lifted nearly word for word, often with identical charts. Prominently featured on both preprints -- just beneath the title and authors, are the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. These are non-profit ventures controlled by Stephen Bannon and Guo Wengui. |
Summary of relevant Wikipedia guidelines
MEDRS
The goal of MEDRS is to make sure that Wikipedia biomedical articles reflect the consensus of doctors and scientists, and not the popular press, politicians, and conspiracy theorists, folks who are not qualified to opine on these topics. Further reading:
- Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Popular press
- Wikipedia:Why MEDRS?#The popular press and health news
As a reminder, there are three types of sources that qualify as MEDRS:
- Review articles in medical journals. (A good place to search for these is PubMed, with the following 4 filters turned on: review, systematic review, meta-analysis, MEDLINE.)
- Statements by national and international health organizations (CDC, NHS, WHO)
- Medical textbooks
FRINGE
In a nutshell, WP:FRINGE defines three levels of coverage:
- majority viewpoint
- minority viewpoint
- fringe
Majority and minority viewpoint are self-explanatory, and those should always be covered in Wikipedia articles. Fringe means that reliable sources barely talk about the idea or don't talk about the idea at all, and fringe ideas should almost always be omitted from Wikipedia. Trying to discuss fringe ideas alongside majority and minority viewpoints causes WP:FALSEBALANCE problems.
Ad nauseum
This topic area has endured a coordinated off-wiki campaign (organized on Twitter) pushing for the inclusion of the lab leak idea. Multiple new users signed up and proceeded to WP:BLUDGEON the talk pages. It takes up an incredible amount of editor time to engage with these WP:MEATPUPPETS, and it is not productive. We are tired of it.
Wikipedia articles impacted
- Talk:COVID-19
- Talk:COVID-19 pandemic
- Talk:COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis
- Talk:COVID-19 misinformation
- Talk:Investigations into the origin of COVID-19
- Talk:Lab leak
- Talk:Nicholas Wade
- Talk:Peter Daszak
- Talk:RaTG13
- Talk:Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
- Talk:Shi Zhengli
- Talk:Wuhan Institute of Virology
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References
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Further reading
- Qin, Amy; Wang, Vivian; Hakim, Danny (2020-11-20). "How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-05-05.
- "The coronavirus wasn't made in a lab. So why does the 'Yan report' say it was?". National Geographic. 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
- Cyranoski, David (2017-12-01). "Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus — and suggests new outbreak could occur". Nature. pp. 15–16. doi:10.1038/d41586-017-07766-9. - it took 14 years before definitive, direct evidence was found for the natural origin of SARS.
- Beaumont, Peter (2021-05-27). "Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far". The Guardian. - placing this clearly in the context of geopolitics. "Many aspects of Wuhan lab leak story have echoes of the search for WMD in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003 which included efforts to “stove pipe” intelligence analysis to fit the operating theory."