The only recent evidence it contains is the fact that 3 researchers from WIV sought hospital care back in autumn of 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID. However, this piece of evidence is hardly consequential without further details:
- First, most common symptoms of COVID are indistinguishable from common cold. If the researchers were known to have any "signature" symptoms like loss of smell the article would certainly mention it.
- Second and more importantly, China doesn't have a robust GP/family doctor system found in western countries. As a result, many people would go to hospitals directly whenever they're mildly sick.
Taking the evidence as we know it now, the straightforward explanation is that 3 researchers caught cold, got mildly sick, so went to the hospital to get prescriptions or doctor's notes for sick leave (in China it's common for employers to require a doctor's note even for a short sick leave).
That said, I believe the lab leak theory is still plausible, and shouldn't be ruled out unless a clear transmission path from bat to human has been identified (which was done for the 2002 SARS outbreak). But I also think that we may never know. I trust that some theories put forward were in good faith, but so far they are little more than speculations.
The sudden shift is just baffling to me though. This huge new furor is due to anonymous CIA sources saying three people got sick? That's extremely tenuous evidence, as you state above.
As far as I can tell, the only biological evidence is the furin cleavage site, which is not uncommon in related viruses. Also, this has been known since the beginning, when the Chinese CDC released the first genome of the virus.
This seems more like people declaring victory because they're finally getting a hint of public support for their suspicions, rather than some truly damning evidence.
This is just one example I could find quickly, but there are many more... https://twitter.com/JoePCunningham/status/139718591836522496...
So let's not make the same mistake by eagerly jumping to conclusions that it was engineered in a lab based on assurances from a different set of scientists.
During a season when bats hibernate to areas thousands of miles away?
If you look at the circumstances behind this pandemic's origins, and do some basic back-of-the-envelope math, the lab-leak hypothesis is close to a certainty.
No, of course we are not "to believe" that. What we are to do is to consider it is a possibility. Or are we to believe that SARS-CoV-2 could only have emerged as a lab leak? Both the natural and the lab-leak hypotheses are feasible, but treating either of them with near certainty or as impossible is not justifiable with the current evidence.
Imagine an alternate universe where all events played out the same as in our own, with the exception that the Wuhan laboratory's existence was a perfectly kept secret by the PRC. In that case, would the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan lead to the certainty that there must be a secret facility nearby that specializes in novel bat-related coronaviruses?
To say nothing of the incredible coincidence of the WIV.