10 reasons why the Wuhan Lab story is not going away.
As we start learning to live with COVID, one story does not seem to be going away at all. The Wuhan lab leak theory (from “Gain of Function” experiment accident).
Why so? There are the 10 reasons I see:
1. Because it is China, and China is known for process and efficiency. The bias is towards assuming something planned than something happened by chance, and for which even after 20 months we have no clue.
2. Because Wuhan also has the Biological Safety Level 4 (BSL4) laboratory, with a long history of SARS virus research.
3. Because there are many circumstantial or anecdotal pieces of evidence, like the concentration of the early case on two sides of the metro line which connects the Wuhan Lab. Incidentally, nothing much has been found about the Huanan wet market, which has been propounded as the source.
4. Because throughout the pandemic, China had been stonewalling all attempts to bring clarity. Now, this is what is anyway expected from a totalitarian state, but this only got too long over time. And too blatant. For example:
§ Harassments for speaking the truth, the most famous being Dr. Li Wenliang who had to retract his early warning (which he shared with only his doctor friends), and ultimately paid with his life by the same disease which he tried to bring to life.
§ This obfuscation has been seen right across the highest echelons of the Chinese scientific community. For example, Shi Zhengli, who is called batwoman for her pathbreaking work on the discovery and mapping of SARS2 like viruses in bats, had been a staunch denier of lab leak from day 1, even before there is any time enough to any credible verification.
This was further aggravated by the directive that all scientific publications on COVID from China have to be vetted by government agencies.
§ Denial, rather rubbishing reports that several scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick in autumn 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized.
§ Hiding data of the Yunnan cave, with three people dying (RaTG13 virus was found in 2013but was never published).
§ Removal of research data from the Wuhan Lab website — not illegal, but unusual.
§ Stonewalling the WHO team who visited Wuhan to investigate the origins, and study outcomes are so controversial that even WHO has said it is not conclusive.
5. The dominant theory is that the virus originated in bats, jumped to another animal, and then mutated in a way that enabled it to transmit to humans, and from human to human. But even after almost 20+ months post the virus has been detected and testing 80,000+ animals as potential intermediary nothing has been found so far. Compare to that the SARS1 intermediary was identified in four months.
6. “Gain of Function (GoF)” school and the vague definitions. While the concept is controversial (even so after COVID19), it also has its supporters. After all, genetically modifying viruses into a deadly variety, which may attack humans in the future, and being ready with a remedy today is salivating.
But the definition of the GoF had been vague, and research goes on with limited international oversight. And even some countries ban it, there are walkarounds (US agencies contributed Wuhan Lab GoF just before the same was made illegal in the US and said the scope of the research can be expanded as an exception based on approvals).
This potentially makes some government and researchers outside China wary of going hard behind the root cause, as they may get entangled in the mess.
7. The credibility of deniers, as well the proposers. For example, Dr. Peter Daszak, a British disease ecologist who runs EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based pandemic prevention group, had consistently pushed back by the lab leak theory from the early days but was found significantly complicit with the Wuhan Lab activities through grants, collaborations, etc. Daszak had for many years collaborated with Shi Zhengli, Director at Wuhan Institute of Virology.
8. Virus human ready, the “furin cleavage site” raised a significant amount of heckles. A significantly scientific term, I understand it “is a minute part of the virus’s anatomy but one that exerts great influence on its infectivity”. Many scientists think that since only SARS2 is the only virus among its family to have it, it creates suspicion that it may be lab-made.
9. Lax security at Wuhan Lab
§ It is not a single lab Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
§ People working in BSL2/ 3 instead of BSL4 for two reasons: the entire lab rarely is certified for BSL4 as the sensitivity of the research is not the same everywhere and working in BLS4 is slow and clumsy. So, there is a general preponderance among the BSL4 lab workers to work in other parts of the lab with lower safety levels, but this increases the risk — BSL2 is equivalent to a sanitized dental clinic in an OECD country.
10. An ecosystem of silence
§ Chinese government and researchers for obvious reasons.
§ US government research agencies, which over the years have funded Gain of Function research.
§ Individual researchers like Peter Daszak, and many more, who are invested significantly, and runs the risk of their professional credibility being questioned.
§ The entire scientific ecosystem may face backlash if the COVID outbreak is traced back to their overt or covert actions.
COVID References:
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the-virus
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000240
