The Lab Leak Theory

I never entirely dismissed it, and now I'm leaning more and more (but not entirely) towards believing the Lab Leak Theory of COVID-19 origins.  For me, this story gained much credence when Jeffry Sachs, who had been the head of the first official investigation of COVID origins, came out with a story supporting the idea (despite the first investigation concluding otherwise).  What concerned Sachs was that the details regarding unfunded research being done (at Wuhan, among other places) was not being provided to him.  He believed he was being stonewalled.

This is not to claim that the CPC designed COVID as a weapon against the west.  Or that the Chinese are more incompetent than average at doing risky research (although, it does appear Wuhan was not using the highest level of biocontainment that should have been used for all coronavirus research, especially for this preliminary and as yet unfunded research--for which there was insufficient funding).

Pretty much everyone who believes in the Lab Leak Theory now believes it was actually a consortium of US and China involved.  A US non-profit was directing the research.*  It was not doing this research in USA possibly because this particular kind of research (Gain of Function with Coronaviruses) was banned in USA for being too risky.  So it was really the fault of actors in the USA that this research was being done at all, and that they chose to do the research in China to evade the ban.

Here is one of the best complete accountings of the Lab Leak Theory.

In fact, it does involve unfunded research being done at Wuhan.  An earlier research proposal was rejected and Wuhan scientists were trying to find a modification that would get it funded, when several of the scientists involved got sick...

The lesson here is Be Careful and/or Avoid doing Risky Research.  We should honor that lesson even if it turns out the Lab Leak Theory is not true.

And to settle this question better, we really do need to bring both sides together for an open debate.  There are some critical questions, for example:

How do the coronaviruses that WIV was known to be working with differ from COVID-19?  We know that Wuhan was adding the Furin cleavage site to different coronaviruses.  But which coronaviruses, and are there actually (as claimed in the first analysis which claimed to disprove the Lab Leak Theory) differences between the SARS type coronaviruses that Wuhan was known to be working with and COVID-19.  Are the differences small enough that they could have arisen from mutation?  Or might the coronaviruses more like COVID-19 have slipped in by either mistake or design?

In short, we really do need to track down the information that Jeffry Sachs was looking for but couldn't get.

And while I am supportive of vaccines, especially COVID-19 vaccines, including Corbevax created by Peter Hotez, and I don't believe he has any need to debate RFK Jr on the subject of vaccines, Hotez was also involved in Gain Of Function research subcontracted to the same scientists in Wuhan as EcoHealth, and was among those on Sachs committee who believed the Lab Leak investigation was unnecessary.  He also reportedly did not report this obvious conflict of interest beforehand.

Here is Hotez and another scientist defending not debating with the likes of RFK Jr.  I agree with them on the vaccine subject, but it still would be good to have some kind of dialog on vaccines, perhaps with different interlocutors and a different moderator.  It need not be 'wide open' but at least deep enough to address issues that have been raised.  (I also have mixed feelings about climate scientist Michael Mann, who often discredits people like me--'doomers'--as being as bad or worse than denialists.  My attitude on doom is fairly simple.  Perhaps we are not doomed, but everything we know now sure looks like we are, and I think we should be realistic and not believe in hopium.)

*EcoHealth alliance and the University of North Carolina had sought a grant from DARPA to investigate adding furi.  And why was DARPA even funding research like this?  (Though, they were not alone, NIH was also funding Gain Of Function research before it was banned.)  It smells of Dual Use, something the US has been accused of doing in other DARPA funded overseas laboratories: designing bioweapons.  If anyone was designing bioweapons in the picture that we now see, it was the USA and not China.  But if the US was designing bioweapons, why was it doing that in the city of a long term competitor (and now 'official enemy').  One possible answer could be because they could.