Today, a thread debunking (unintentional) misinformation on the origins of covid-19 / SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Starting with the top 10 easily fact-checked ideas or statements that are not true, although a shocking number of scientists still think these are true.
(1) (FALSE) Before COVID, SARS research was done in a BSL4 lab at the WIV.
Actually, SARS research, even the (humanized) animal infection experiments were conducted at BSL2/3.
(2) (FALSE) There is no precedent of SARS viruses escaping from a laboratory.
Actually, SARS virus escaped from labs at least 4 times in 3 countries within a year. One of the labs was a BSL4 lab. Investigators said that SARS virus could have escaped 4 times from a Beijing lab.
(3) (UNCLEAR) SARS-CoV-2 spilled from animal to human at a Wuhan market.
No animal samples from markets were (+) for SARS2. China-WHO team said they don't know the role of the Huanan market in #originsofCOVID19
Current evidence is consistent with both natural and lab origins.
(4) (FALSE) Wuhan is a place where SARS transmits from animals into humans frequently. That's why the Wuhan Institute of Virology was built there.
Actually, Wuhan is ~1000km away from SARS spillover zones. Its human population was even used as a negative (no SARS) control group.
(5) (FALSE) Bat viruses in Wuhan city & Hubei Province have not been studied over the years. We don't know if there are SARS2-like viruses there.
Actually, 1000s of bats have been sampled by different groups over the years in Hubei. We just don't have access to the full data.
(6) (FALSE) Because the same species of bats live in South China and also Hubei, SARS2-like viruses are also in bats in Hubei.
Actually, the WIV published a paper before COVID-19 saying that it is mainly geographical barriers, not host species, that separate virus lineages.
(7) (FALSE) If SARS-CoV-2 was engineered or manipulated in the lab, scientists can tell.
Actually, scientists can detect only specific ways of modifying pathogens. We cannot rule out whether SARS-CoV-2 has been cultured, passaged or genetically modified.
(8) If SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab, it would look unnatural.
Actually, many of the viruses that have escaped from labs are viruses collected from animals or humans outside of the lab. Even if slightly modified or manipulated, they look like viruses that can be found in nature.
(9) (FALSE) All of the WIV's virus sequences are publicly available.
Actually, there's a missing WIV database of more than 22,000 pathogen samples that became inaccessible since Sep 2019, weeks before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan.
(10) (FALSE) The WIV has shared all of their sequences (data and sample histories) closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in a timely and accurate manner.
Actually, when they shared the most closely related virus to SARS2, they did not mention its link to severe respiratory cases...
.. they also did not disclose that the virus sample had been genome sequenced in 2018 or that they had at least 8 other SARS2-like virus samples collected between 2012-2015 & sequenced.
Those sequences are still not publicly available more than a year after the pandemic began.
Bonus: If SARS2 came from a lab, someone would've already spilled the beans. This secret is too hot to handle.
Actually, there's no obvious whistleblower channel. There's also no international investigation. How would someone safely communicate evidence on the origins in China?
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I encourage experts who have insisted on a natural origin of Covid-19 to gracefully change their public stance instead of doubling down on the threadbare evidence for the wet market hypothesis.
You could acknowledge that you initially trusted your colleagues in China/US to tell the truth. But time and time again over the past 5 years, it has been shown that they withheld critical evidence from you and the public:
1⃣The 2018 Defuse proposal
2⃣Low biosafety standards for experiments where live viruses are produced and used in human cell infection studies
3⃣Risky pathogen experiments and surprising gain of function
4⃣Missing pathogen sample database, viruses discovered after 2015 largely not shared with US collaborators
5⃣Closest virus relative that we know of was collected from a mine where people died from suspected SARS-like virus infection
The studies published last month where Wuhan scientists experimented with potentially dangerous pathogens at low biosafety opened your eyes to the level of reckless ambition in their research.
Given these betrayals, it is fully within reason to retract your trust and re-evaluate all the available evidence. Those of you who have access to intelligence could say that the non-public evidence has cast a new light on the public evidence and strengthens the case for a lab origin of Covid-19.
This is better than continuing to argue that you somehow know all the viruses in the Wuhan lab's collection and somehow know they didn't follow through on their 2018 plans to put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses and study these at low biosafety exactly like they said they would.
For those experts who haven't even looked at the Defuse proposal and its drafts, the Wuhan-US scientists clearly said they were interested in furin cleavage sites at the spike S1/S2 junction, and would insert these into novel SARS-like viruses in the lab (not closely related to the 2003 SARS virus as that would be dangerous). They would test the ability of these SARS-like viruses with inserted cleavage sites to infect human cells and cause pathogenesis in vivo.
The Wuhan lab was regularly synthesizing novel coronavirus genomes without leaving any sign of lab manipulation. They used a protocol with trypsin-supplemented media to retain cleavage sites in the viruses. They did much of the work, including infection experiments in human cells, at BSL-2. Their US collaborator Ralph Baric has repeatedly criticized them for doing the work at low biosafety.
h/t @emilyakopp for FOIA'ing the Defuse proposal drafts.
Some virologists may argue that the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 doesn't look canonical. You should read the citation in the Defuse draft for the computational model used to predict furin cleavage sites. The paper says it doesn't rely on the canonical motif and instead looks at a 20-residue sequence to make its predictions. The PRRAR motif exists in a feline coronavirus, MERS has a PRXXR S1/S2 furin cleavage site, and the RRXR motif is a functional furin cleavage site in numerous other proteins.
According to Zeit Online, German Chancellery consulted with US Director of National Intelligence in 2023, who said there was nothing to the lab leak hypothesis.
They doubted "Eierköpfe" (egghead) scientists in intelligence knew better than leading virologists around the world.
In the US, something similar was happening where scientists in intelligence agencies also assessed a likely lab origin of Covid but were sidelined.
"The dominant view within the intelligence community was clear when... the director of national intelligence, and a couple of her senior analysts, briefed Biden... concluded with “low confidence” that Covid-19 had emerged when the virus leapt from an animal to a human." wsj.com/politics/natio…
In both cases, government leaders favored the opinions of leading virologists over the scientists working in intelligence. Even though some of the leading virologists were public advocates and funders of "gain-of-function" research of concern with pathogens.
I am not 100% convinced Covid came from a lab. I still think there is a small chance the virus emerged in Wuhan without the help of research activities. However, this would mean:
1⃣ The Wuhan-US scientists' entire framework about the spillover risks of SARS-like viruses, building on research and data collected over more than a decade, was incorrect.
2⃣ A highly transmissible, super stealthy virus well adapted for causing uncontrollable outbreaks in multiple animal species left zero trace of its origin in the wildlife or fur farms of China/SE Asia after emerging in only Wuhan out of 1000s of other populous cities.
3⃣ Out of all possible viruses to cause a pandemic and all times for a pandemic to occur, it was an unprecedented SARS-like virus with a novel furin cleavage site, matching the description of a 2018 US-Wuhan research proposal, emerging in Wuhan where scientists worked with such viruses at low biosafety, less than 2 years after said proposal was drafted.
It's not impossible that leading experts were completely mistaken about the exceedingly low odds of such viruses emerging in Wuhan.
It's not impossible that, in 2019, nature churned out a virus matching the scientists' 2018 research plans and that virus emerged in only Wuhan of all places.
But you'd have to be very motivated to believe Covid-19 emerged naturally.
We are unlikely to reach 100% certainty unless a whistleblower appears or the Chinese authorities one day assess that it is in their interest to share the truth.
I am still hopeful that this will happen one day. I believe in human courage.
Before that day, there are several routes of investigation that remain to be explored by the US gov.
Conducting a rigorous, credible investigation of Covid origins can unearth more key evidence while also informing the implementation of new measures to prevent lab pandemics.
Top journals have the power to set global biosafety standards.
It's a problem that they do not see this as their moral responsibility. By publishing & celebrating risky research done at questionable biosafety, they incentivize the 'work fast break things' model of research.
I've given up on journals taking the initiative to be responsible members of the scientific community.
It is up to the U.S. government to tell them to behave responsibly or do business elsewhere.
I would love to be corrected if any top journal can show us that fostering a culture of accountability, scientific integrity, and 'do no harm' is one of their measurable goals as an organization & a strict criteria for decision-making regarding what research/groups to publish.
Dear @NSAGov I've just google searched several human transmissible viruses with the aim of understanding how many are not governed by the Federal Select Agents Program and can be used in gain-of-function research by privately funded groups.
I am not doing anything nefarious 🙏
@NSAGov The answer is there are a lot of human transmissible viruses that are not governed by the Federal Select Agents Program and can be used in gain-of-function research by privately funded groups.
@NSAGov Novel SARS-like and MERS-like viruses are not select agents. Meaning scientists in the US can bring these to their labs in major cities and enhance them without informing the authorities.