It’s worth noting that in both the Sverdlov case and in this one, world scientists are only being given access to the situation in an extremely controlled fashion. A primary reason we can’t say more on what happened in this case is the CCP’s tight control over access that could help clarify the situation.

Which will always look suspicious, whether it was actually a completely natural virus or not.

Then don't make conclusions from insufficient data and manufacture consent?

I think historians in a million years will snort from laughter when reading "The WHO that denies the existence of Taiwan determined that COVID19 did not originate from the bioweapons lab in Wuhan researching that very virus, only in the city".

If it looks like a coverup, Occam says it is a coverup.

The Chinese authorities are not stupid. They know how bad it looks to not allow investigation. Which means they think the result of a free investigation would look even worse.

I disagree. The CCP's modus operandi is self preservation through suppression of information. To those perpetrating the cover up what actually happened is irrelevant. The CCP is never transparent in matters that could make them look bad. From their perspective allowing an open international investigation would make them appear guilty regardless of the results because it would be unprecedented.

While I agree with you, I'm thinking that this is a response common to sensitive government institutions in general. If this lab leak happened in the US, would we suddenly invite CCP (or Russian/N.Korean/Iranian) agents into Fort Detrick to conduct their "investigations"? Which country would actually allow such a thing?

Consider for a moment the propaganda value of being able to say, "we visited their labs and witnessed first-hand their failure to {do some sanitization procedure} correctly! Oh how they clearly don't value human lives!"

My impression is that a thorough investigation is the normal thing for any major epidemic.

... so if an open investigation and free access would look better then a cover up then by your logic they would allow it leading to the conclusion reality looks worse?

No, the point is there is almost no way the party would sanction an external investigation, regardless of the actual situation.

I find this very surprising, but I suppose it could be true. Can you put some meat on the bones somehow? An anecdote or something?

Without going into subjective current event interpretation, the phenomenon is well illustrated in HBO's Chernobyl with the plant engineers and manager, or the show trial. Their discounting of material facts in favour of "the expected answer" by higher-ups is an endemic (and probably rational) strategy in response to ruthless (central plan+party politics)'d organisations.

I thought the lab leak hypothesis was pretty unlikely in early 2020 but having seen the how the Chinese state has acted since then it now seems entirely believable.

there were similar conspiracy way back in 2003 when SARS outbreak, except this time in 2019~, the social medias are way more viral than the virus and CCP apparently can't suppress these "contents/info/fakenews" even with the enormous help from WHO

I don't understand how this works, so forgive my ignorance.

Wouldn't the Wuhan lab be able to disprove this really easily? How often do they sequence viruses? Couldn't they show categorically that COVID-19 is not a descendant of a virus they were working with/on?

No, it's impossible for them to categorically show that it wasn't. However, they could make an extremely strong case if they completely documented all ongoing research activities in the lab before the beginning of the pandemic. This would involve total disclosure of the activity of every researcher, open access to all materials and the sequencing of all viral samples and cultures.

It is not feasible to do this probably. The WIV even claims to have completely consumed all biosamples related to RaTG13, which is the most-closely-related known virus to SARS-CoV-2. Supporting such an investigation is completely counter to their interests (speaking both of the institute and the CCP).

The overwhelming evidence is that SARS-CoV-2 emerged completely adapted to humans. This has been confirmed by the amazing lack of initial adaptation to the new human host. We only saw major changes in the spike resulting in a change in phenotype later in 2020. The proximal origins of the spike protein suggest a primate or human host. For this to happen, a natural origin in another species is astronomically improbable. It's the strongest evidence that we'll ever have as to the origins of the virus, and to this biologist it is completely indicative of what happened. We will only know the full truth if people speak out.

I had never heard this before. Do you have a source? It seems to me the more informed in virology people are the more they seem to think the 'leak' is the most likely scenario.

How would you know they provided a complete list of viruses they were working on? Couldn't they just leave off anything incriminating?

What you're saying here is that more transparency cannot help them and can only hurt them.

In politics controlling narative is more important than the truths. PRC govt paranoids US will control the narrative into another iraq's WMD. The PRC looks at this issue differently US.

As long as they don't have an audited central database of all viruses that they sequenced, they have no way to demonstrate that they showed you all of their virus lines.

And if they had such a central database, we'd have probably heard about it by now.

I'm not sure about the "audited" part, but the WIV did have such a central database. It went offline in September 2019, they say due to repeated hacking attempts. It hasn't been back since, and access to that database has been a major point of contention between those who believe a forensic investigation (i.e., one that doesn't simply trust the WIV to report whether they were working with related viruses) is necessary, and those who do not.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349073738_An_invest...

Only if they can prove a negative.

Never heard about Sverdlosk, interesting story.

> Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar issued a decree to begin demilitarization of Compound 19 in 1992. However, the facility continued its work. Not a single journalist has been allowed onto the premises since 1992. About 200 soldiers with Rottweiler dogs still patrol the complex.

Absolutely, without multiple trust-worthy first-person accounts backed by evidence, the likely best we can hope for is an eventually-consistent story that we are "pretty sure" about. Considering the size of the impact on the world, that will take a long time.