This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but this investigative opinion doesn’t pass scientific muster. Misinformation.
Smallpox is also naturally originating virus. That doesn't prohibit it from leaking from a lab.
I’m a bioscientist. It’s frustrating to respond with evidence and in good faith, and be downvoted by those who simply disagree. But sadly it appears that the loudest voice prevails over reason.
> I’m a bioscientist.
And I'm a Bayesian analyst. Surely your position is that it is a coincidence that:
- the virus appeared to originate in Wuhan
- genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis
- The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which are more than 900 kilometers away Wuhan
- According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market
- Wuhan is home to two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus
- Within ~280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC). WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purposes. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province
- one of the researchers described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. In another accident, bats peed on him. He was once thrilled for capturing a bat carrying a live tick
Not conclusive by any means, but I have yet to hear reasoning by which we should exclude the lab-leak theory, besides that the virus evolved naturally, which does not contradict the lab-leak theory whatsoever.
Also, from your article:
> As a team of researchers from the WHO
This WHO? [0][1] Doesn't instill much confidence in me, to be sure.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM
[1] https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/...
There are a lot of bats in Wuhan. There are a lot of bats carrying coronaviruses. Coronaviruses have triggered past epidemics. Ergo, there’s an institute for virology in Wuhan.
Listen starting at 6:30 in the podcast I posted from Nature. There is indeed strong correlation but no causal relationship established.
Except everything I've read indicates the bats carrying the most closely related virus are not in Wuhan, not even close:
> The SARS-CoV-2 virus is most closely related to coronaviruses found in certain populations of horseshoe bats that live about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away in Yunnan province, China. [0]
[0] https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-complicate...
So why would the virus so strongly appear to originate in Wuhan, and not in another city, closer to the bats' native regions? Appears quite statistically unlikely.
For example, there were cases as early as December 2019 that did not come from Wuhan. Wuhan was no doubt a key early hotspot.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market...
There has been rigorous scholarship done on this question. I recommend reading it given your interest in the subject.
I read the article, but it only states that the first case from December was not linked to the seafood market ("wet market"), but not that it occurred outside of Wuhan. Did I misread something?
By the way, early on I believed that the virus jumped to humans at the seafood market, which was the prevailing theory at the time, it seemed. But as evidence like the above article came out - noting that many early cases had no link to the seafood market, while still being in Wuhan - it raised suspicions, and lent credence to the lab-leak theory.
> There has been rigorous scholarship done on this question. I recommend reading it given your interest in the subject.
I do, but I'm not convinced. A lot of reporting either relies on appeal to authority ("I'm a PhD, and this couldn't possibly happen, so don't question it"), or is purposely obtuse, confusing lab-leak with lab-synthesized, and by dodging the point, hardly alleviates suspicion.
You must understandably excuse me for being a sceptic. I started wearing masks back in February or March, against the advice of the CDC who was telling me masks increase the rate of spread. At the same time I believed that borders should be closed to limit the rate of spread, while the WHO was telling me that closing borders would do no such thing.
So I am not going to believe something just because an expert tells me to, nor do I find it at all scientific to dismiss politically inconvenient possibilities.
>The Lancet paper’s data also raise questions about the accuracy of the initial information China provided, Lucey says.
If anything, this source strengthens the possibility of lab leak hypothesis.