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.