The Origins Of Covid

In the early 21st century a fast-moving viral disease called “SARS” sickened thousands and killed hundreds, mostly in Asia. It was particularly deadly, killing about 1/10 of people infected. It wasn’t however as contagious as other similar viruses and public health measures contained it and stopped the outbreak. Ultimately, it was found that the virus—SARS CoV-1— originated in bats and spread from them to palm civets which were purchased in “wet markets” in China. Sound familiar?

In 2012 another coronavirus made the jump to humans, originating again in bats and then reaching humans probably through camels. MERS killed almost 1000 people, and was similar in many ways to SARS. It was also caused by a coronavirus, “MERS CoV”.

These two coronavirus outbreaks seemed quite scary—until we were hit by a global pandemic that has killed millions.

Many “scary” viruses like SARS-CoV, Sin Nombre virus, bird flu, and Ebola are so-called “zoonotic diseases”, infections that originate in animals but can infect humans. These viruses are usually not well-adapted to humans and don’t spread readily from person-to-person. But sometimes they do. There are lots of reasons these viruses can become able to spread. With influenza, as mentioned above by Dr. Emanuel, a pig can be infected by a human flu virus and a bird flu virus, and they unluckily combine, forming a nastier new virus that is very infectious in humans.

One way we have not seen viruses becoming epidemics is through intentional or accidental human manipulation. There was a “lab leak” incident in the Soviet Union in 1979 in which anthrax spores were released, killing dozens, but this was not a disease passed from person to person. Despite all the Cold War research into biological warfare, there hasn’t been (as far as we know) any outbreaks linked to human-engineered germs.1 

And now the White House is, for some reason, pushing the idea that covid originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). This is a reasonable hypothesis, one that scientists have been investigating since the begining of the pandemic. In fact the three main hypotheses for covid’s origins are:

1. Natural (zoonotic origin): the virus passed from animals to humans

2. Lab leak: a natural virus escaped accidentally from WIV

3. Intentional: the virus was engineered and either escaped or was released for some reason.

Science is a way of looking at the world around us and finding the best explanations for what we can see. It should also be able to predict, based on these explanations, what we may see in the future. Science will always be influenced by the personal beliefs and biases of scientists, but it contains its own self-correcting mechanism. Part of the scientific process is attempting to tear apart an idea and see if it really holds up. And this is how we must look at covid’s origins, because politics itself makes for bad science.

Exploring the origins of covid is difficult because of the culture of the Chinese government. From the begining they have hidden materials, destroyed data, and flat out lied. In science, it’s not unusual to be forced to work with incomplete data. Once thing we did get from China very early were the genetic sequences of the viruses. And over the last few years we’ve been able to recover even more genetic material from early in the pandemic. But we will never, with complete certainty, know the exact origin of SARS CoV-2. What we will know is which explanation is most probable.

According to the new White House “Lab Leak” page, there are four “facts” that “prove” the lab leak hypothesis.

“The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.”

The White House does not explain what they mean by this, but let’s assume they mean that something about the virus is “unnatural”. What they are probably referring to is something in the virus called a “furin cleavage site”. This is supposedly a “fingerprint” of human tampering because it doesn’t occur naturally (sic) and it makes the virus more infectious in people. It turns out that the basic assumption is wrong: the furin cleavage site does occur naturally; it is found in many coronaviruses in nature. So while this is an interesting hypothesis, and it is possible that humans created a virus with this new characteristic, it’s not the simplest or most probable explanation.

“Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.”

I won’t quibble about their use of “data shows” rather than “data show”—datum is singular, data plural. But that’s not the part that’s substantively incorrect. First, it’s wrong to assume a pandemic can’t start from a single spillover event. That’s an arbitrary statement. Even if it were true that only one spillover were allowed, sophisticated genetic and evolutionary investigations have shown that there were likely at least two spillover events that occured around the Huanan wet market in Wuhan.

“Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels.”

Wuhan is home to a lab that studies coronavirusus, not a “SARS research lab” as such. And it likely had inadequate safety protocols. Whether it was conducting “gain of function” research is a bit debatable but either way, this is simply one potential puzzle piece. In looking for an origin of covid, we need to look at, well, where it came from. It could have come from a virus research lab. It could have come from animals in a wet market. It could have come from people eating bats (which is common in some places). Research to date has shown that it likely didn’t go directly from bats to humans. Research has shown that multiple susceptible animals were in the Huanan wet market, as was covid genetic material. And the market also appears to be the epicenter of the outbreak. It is certainly possible that someone at the WIV developed—intentionally or accidentally—SARS CoV-2 in the lab, and then somehow gave it to bats who gave it to animals at the wet market who then gave it to shoppers. This is not, however, the most probable explanation.So while none of this definitively rules out “lab leak”, the most probable explanation is transmission from animals in the market to humans.

“Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.”

This is problematic. First, “covid-like symptoms” can be caused by many different viruses. Millions of people have covid-like symptoms in the fall and winter especially. If WIV researchers were the first cases of covid we should be able to use epidemiologic and genetics techniques to trace the origins of the outbreak. We would be able to see viral samples that leave a trail of breadcrumbs back to those supposedly-sick lab workers. But we don’t see that. What we do see is very clear evidence that the virus originated in the wet market itself.

“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.”

This statement is scientifically nonsensical. Evidence is found when it is found—there’s no clock that says it must be before a certain date. More important, it’s just wrong. There is more evidence of natural origin of the virus than any other source and there has been since nearly the begining. To say otherwise simply shows political motivation rather than a hunger for the truth.

You don’t have to take political “sides” to understand data and science. You can fully believe the Chinese government was criminally irresponsible and that their actions worsened one of the worst pandemics in modern history. But you cannot simply assert that the origin is “lab leak” or “wet market”. You have to bring receipts. And so far, the vast preponderance of the evidence points to covid’s origin in the Huanan wet market, not the Wuhan Institue of Virology.

But why does it even matter?

We will never know how many Chinese citizens died of covid, but it’s probably in the millions. The opacity of China’s response to covid was undoubtedly responsible for many, many deaths.

Do we want to follow China’s example and let politics drive our science and health policy? Or do we want facts, openness, and democratic values to drive our policy decisons and save lives?

Stay well.

-pal