You have to ignore all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely.

Just as someone might want to believe the moon is made from cheese. It looks a bit like it, after all. But to believe that, you have to ignore all that scientists have uncovered about the moon.

What data makes this extremely unlikely? Worobey and Pekar are hardly convincing.

Just google it. There's enough out there, but you don't want to believe the experts even though you don't know the science. There is no signature of manipulation in the Genome. Zero sign of it being "recombined". Experts just don't see a clear way it could have happened. Just the inability to say it's impossible and will never happen is seen as confirmation of the hypothesis.

Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis often believe the researchers have somehow enhanced the virus. The only way we actually know to do this is through evolution in lab animals. And even then it's pretty damn hard. Maybe multiple industrial-scale facilities could evolve a threatening Virus. At horrendous cost. Maybe. And even China couldn't hide that.

The most likely research-origin scenario is either a naturally-evolved novel virus collected and accidentally released by the WIV, or a chimera of multiple such viruses. No genomic evidence could distinguish that from natural spillover. For example, here's David Relman back in 2020:

> This argument [that SARS-CoV-2 must be natural since it doesn't use a known backbone] fails to acknowledge the possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02) had already been discovered and were being studied in a laboratory—for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It would have been a logical next step to wonder about the properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in the laboratory.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117

The WIV had the world's largest effort to collect novel sarbecoviruses from nature, often from remote caves that no other humans would routinely visit; so I don't see any reason to discount that possibility.

You don't see the reason because you think like a computer scientist. Having two NPM packages whose versions interfere with each other is often called "dependency hell". But it is way worse for proteins in a Virus.

In order to make a pandemic Virus the components must be finely tuned to each other. That is only possible through massively parallel evolution. A lab can't do that. When a lab combines Viruses, it's mostly to learn the individual contributions of the proteins. These Viruses are way less "fit" overall.

Except that we're currently discussing an article about researchers who achieved gain-of-function in a laboratory recombinant of a pandemic virus? Their chimera has the immune escape of omicron, with most of the mortality of the Wuhan wild type. The decrease in mortality compared to the Wuhan wild type is both statistically insignificant and irrelevant regardless; the correct comparison is against natural omicron, since that's the only natural virus with the omicron spike's immune escape properties.

A subsequent BU press release denies that the research involved gain of function, with bizarre arguments including the fact that since it's never been tested in humans (good?) we can't know it's actually more lethal in humans. This is obviously wrong, as many people have pointed out. For example, here's Marc Lipsitch at Harvard:

https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582574061062098946?cxt...

My original quote is from David Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford who I wouldn't expect to "think like a computer scientist". Laboratories have been enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens for literally decades now, as measured by reproduction rates in vitro, mortality in their lab animals, and other similar metrics, and publishing in the open literature. For example, here's Relman asking Baric a question back in 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s

If you were really unware that labs are successfully enhancing potential human pandemic pathogens, then a Google Scholar search for Baric will find many examples.

Anyways, even if you believe (quite falsely) that laboratory gain-of-function on such pathogens is impossible, that doesn't exclude a research-related origin for SARS-CoV-2. That could be a naturally-evolved virus, but one that was sitting harmlessly in a remote cave until the WIV sampled and accidentally released it. The WIV sampled remote areas that no other humans routinely entered, so it's possible in that scenario that the lineage would have died out in bats (or other zoonotic hosts) if the WIV hadn't released it into humans.

Nobody is asserting that genomic evidence shows SARS-CoV-2 to be natural anymore. Even the strongest proponents of zoonotic origin have moved on, to more complicated epidemiological and phylogenetic arguments like Pekar's paper.

Well hey would you look at that

>all the evidence and data that makes this extremely unlikely.

Please, do share.

Why did the lab in Wuhan study coronaviruses? Is it that there are convenient natural reservoirs nearby?

nope. hundreds of miles away actually.

It is not. In the words of Dr. Shi herself:

> We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210727042832/https://www.scien...

Coronaviruses are basically everywhere, as are bats. The greatest abundance of sarbecoviruses is far from Wuhan, though. The closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in Yunnan and surroundings, near Kunming or Pu'er, and now in Laos.

I'm not really familiar with Dr Shi or your source (seems a bit obfuscated via archive.org), but it does seem like a very sober and careful analysis from an expert.

Also, she says what I always assumed was the case:

> Scientists from around the world have overwhelmingly concluded that SARS-CoV-2 originated naturally rather than from any institution.

An expert indeed; Dr. Shi discovered the bat virus ancestors of SARS-1. Her subsequent research at the WIV is the matter of controversy here, as to whether that could have caused the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The interview is with Science, the well-known academic journal. That journal seems to have reorganized their website recently and broken my old link, so I used archive.org instead of hunting down the new URL.

So Dr. Shi is obviously going to say the pandemic is of natural origin. Even if she personally believes otherwise, she's under the physical control of the PRC government, and would suffer grave consequences if she went against their official story. My point is that not even she thinks spillover in Wuhan is likely, though. The idea that the WIV was situated in Wuhan because of an abundance of nearby sarbecoviruses is bizarrely common, but it's neither anti-lab-origin nor pro-lab-origin, just wrong.

Indeed, I really don't know why there is a virology lab in Wuhan, or why they would be located in any given part of the world.

I tend to assume that covid-19 came about like (presumably) every other virus since time eternal; through random mutation in the wild. What I don't really understand is any sort of singular alternative theory of how it arose - it seems that every alternative is anomaly hunting or god of the gaps type arguments in search of some greater meaning behind it.

I agree there's no conclusive evidence for any specific origin of SARS-CoV-2, unnatural, natural, or otherwise. I don't see the "god of the gaps" analogy, though. There's no evidence that god exists, and attributing actions to god has no predictive or practical benefit. But there's certainly evidence that virologists exist, and were collecting and manipulating novel SARS-like viruses near the origin of a novel SARS-like pandemic. (Are you familiar with the DEFUSE grant proposal?)

So with millions dead, shouldn't we investigate? There are many paths unexplored within reach of American or European subpoena, both in the WIV's collaborators and in sequencer reads from unrelated work that may contain early viral genomes as contamination.

What would you like to investigate? This is what I don't understand - what is the alternative to a natural origin?

That researchers at the WIV collected two novel viruses from nature, built a chimera with a synthetic FCS, infected themselves by accident, and spread the virus into the world? The first two steps are exactly what they proposed in DEFUSE; that proposal got rejected, but it's still an indication of the work they might have continued with other funders.

Or that they collected one naturally-evolved virus, got infected in the field, and spread it from there? The WIV sent grad students into remote caves that no other humans routinely entered, specifically selected for their abundance of novel potential pandemic pathogens, with nothing more than nitrile gloves and a surgical mask. So while there are far more farmers and guano collectors (and others creating risk of natural spillover) than WIV grad students, the risk per WIV grad student seems orders of magnitude higher.

I'm not really familiar with the acronyms, but I wonder if it would be possible to prove that the virus is not artificially constructed? The other theory just sounds like natural origin with an extra step.

But what I wonder most would be, say that it was proven that covid-19 was artificially constructed through some method or other - what would it matter? I wonder if more people would get vaccines? Would China now know that they can unleash something like this on the world with relative impunity? Would it incentivize further research into biological weapons?

It's usual to investigate after a disaster, to seek the cause and try to prevent future similar disasters; we do it after plane crashes, or building collapses, or nuclear reactor explosions. A pandemic seems to me like the same basic category. If wildlife traffickers are taking actions that we know have caused past pandemics, then I believe those should be restricted. Likewise, if virologists are taking actions that we know have caused past pandemics, then those should also be restricted. This is true regardless of whether the mechanism is simple (like a researcher infected in the field) or complex (like genetic engineering).

The DEFUSE proposal was described in this Intercept article:

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

For the previous two coronaviruses that emerged in humans (SARS-1 and MERS), animal hosts (civet cats and camels) were found within about a year. That's pretty good evidence of natural origin. For SARS-CoV-2, no such animal has yet been found, excluding animals known to be infected by humans like housecats or mink. That's not proof of unnatural origin--for example, Ebola is unquestionably natural but its zoonotic hosts remain mysterious. That's not what anyone expected, though.

For overall background, Alina Chan has a book. I haven't read it myself, but I've found her comments elsewhere to be cautious and reasonable.

And what ability do you see us as having to restrict Chinese viral research?

I imagine telling an American that they are not allowed to hunt wildlife and sell it at market, and I don't think that would work. I wonder if China really has a much greater ability to enforce such a provision?

That seems out of our control, but I wonder what would be? Would preparations include mask stockpiles, and can we force people to wear them? It seems that mRNA vaccines can be created quickly, but can we mandate that people get them?

> And what ability do you see us as having to restrict Chinese viral research?

The ability to appeal to their self-interest? I doubt that any evidence would cause the CCP to deviate from its preferred story (which I think now is natural zoonosis outside China, then import on frozen food?), but they don't want a pandemic any more than I do.

So I'd guess that given evidence that certain research activities likely caused this pandemic, the Chinese government would quietly act to restrict them, all while publicly denying that they're doing so. Indeed, they might have already--Dr. Shi's group hasn't published anything even as dangerous as these BU researchers' experiment since before the pandemic.

Is the work complete then? Or would the investigation need to continue? And what sort of evidence would it take to conclude?

I do think it's possible that Chinese virology is safer than American virology now. The latter doesn't seem too safe though, judging from the work at BU that we're discussing here.

As noted above, I believe that subpoenas should be obtained for all relevant records of the WIV's collaborators, and for any sequencer reads that potentially contain early viral genomes as contamination. The evidence for a lab origin so far is scattered and circumstantial, but that's just from various leaks and amateur open source intelligence; perhaps a formal investigation with subpoena power could learn more.

We’ve restricted Chinese nuclear weapons tests just fine.

Have we? I'm far from an expert, but doesn't China have a mature nuclear program that includes enough of an arsenal for their strategic purposes?

It does not seem that we've been able to contain the ambitions of North Korea, and Iran isn't looking so good either.

Wuhan is a global biotech hub. There’s a bunch of R&D and manufacturing there.

Unfortunately the politics makes it comforting to believe (even though all the evidence points to natural origin - explained at length here and elsewhere).

It is so much easier to believe that the bad thing was made by bad people somewhere else, instead of confronting the reality that in fact we did it with our ever greater encroachment on the last remaining natural reservoirs - and will do it again, probably soon.