Once dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the notion that the new coronavirus spread from a research lab in Wuhan, China has gained more mainstream backing in academia, the media, and at least one government.
“There is a credible alternative view … based on the nature of the virus,” a senior British government official told The Daily Mail. “Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.”
Authorities around the world say Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, is where the new coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 originated.
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Spoehr said Chinese government officials did invite suspicion with their actions.
“Like a witness at a trial that has a reputation for not being truthful and honest with facts, a jury is not likely to believe them,” Spoehr said. “In this case, people are more likely to assume the worst about China and believe [the new coronavirus] started in a lab.”
Here are four things to know about the Wuhan lab theory.
1. Not a Biological Weapon
First, what it’s almost certainly not.
Although early internet gossip pushed the coronavirus as a biological weapon engineered in a Chinese lab, many experts say there is no credible evidence of that.
A study in mid-March by Scripps Research, published by the journal Nature Medicine, strongly states that COVID-19–also referred to as SARS-CoV-2–follows the natural process similar to related strains of coronavirus.
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A leading expert on bioweapons is definitive on the matter.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that this is a bioweapon or that it was accidentally released from the Wuhan lab,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research Policy at the University of Minnesota and author of “Living Terrors: What Our Country Needs to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe.”
“Today, with the genetics we have on these viruses and how we can do testing, we can almost date them almost like carbon testing so radiocarbon and you want to know how old a block is or something like that,” Osterholm said during an interview in March on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
Osterholm said the new coronavirus “clearly jumped from an animal species, probably the third week of November to humans.”
“I don’t believe that there’s any evidence linking this to … an intentional release or an accidental release, or that it’s an engineered bug. It’s not,” he said.
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2. Doubts About Seafood Market in Wuhan
The prevailing wisdom that the virus “was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan,” Ignatius wrote in the Post, “is shaky.”
He noted that “bats weren’t sold at the seafood market, although that market or others could have sold animals that had contact with bats.”
Wuhan authorities closed that seafood market and disinfected it without swabbing individual animals and cages, or drawing blood from workers, according to The New York Times.
“It is absolutely clear the market had no connection with the origin of the outbreak virus, and, instead, only was involved in amplification of an outbreak that had started elsewhere in Wuhan almost a full month earlier,” Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University professor of chemistry and chemical biology, told CNN.
A study published Jan. 24 found that the early coronavirus cases were not connected to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. The study was published in February by The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal.
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3. Accidentally Caught in Lab and Spread?
COVID-19 “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker,” Ebright, of Rutgers University, told the Post columnist.
Coronaviruses in bats were being studied in Wuhan only at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” Ebright said. Biosafety Level 4 is the highest level of security.
In a December video from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, staffers are seen “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices,” the Rutgers microbiologist is quoted as saying in the Post.
Cheng noted that COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus, and that Chinese researchers likely didn’t anticipate the need for the highest security level.
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4. China Driving Suspicions
Aside from any evidence about starting in a lab–anecdotal or otherwise–China’s early response to the coronavirus may have been a reason that suspicion spread more quickly than the disease itself.
The misinformation from delayed what would have been an early response from the international community. Later, mid-level Chinese government officials accused the U.S. Army of planting the virus in Wuhan.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was one of the earliest members of Congress to raise alarm about the coronavirus.
Cotton’s office wasn’t ready to weigh in on the origins of the virus or whether Congress would investigate. But the senator said China is responsible for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
“China must be held accountable for unleashing this plague on the world,” Cotton told The Daily Signal in a written statement, noting he has introduced legislation to do just that.
In early January, eight Chinese doctors–including Dr. Li Wenliang–warned about the coronavirus. The government brought them in for questioning and condemned them for “making false statements.” [read more]
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