A COVID-19 Lab Leak: More Likely than Not

Explosive new data and analysis move the dial on pandemic origins

On Thursday, the minority staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) released an interim report on COVID-19 origins. The report’s conclusion was measured: “it appears reasonable to conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.” However, explosive new information was released in parallel in an investigative article published yesterday jointly by Vanity Fair and Pro Publica (VF/PP).

I’ve read both the Senate report and the investigative article, and report here what I take from them. As long-time readers here will know, I have followed closely and even published on the lab leak debate. The new investigative reporting from behind-the-scenes of the Senate investigation provides ample support of the hypothesis that a research-related incident was more likely than not the origins of COVID-19.

Let’s look at some top-line highlights.

VF/PP conducted a forensic investigation best characterized as intelligence rather than science. This is important because science alone, as we have learned, cannot be dispositive on pandemic origins.

Evidence of an emergency situation at WIV during fall, 2019 is the most important conclusion, based on an analysis of documents of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), interpreted and analyzed by experts in China’s politics, bureaucracy and communications. Emphasis added below:

. . . the WIV dispatches did indeed signal that the institute faced an acute safety emergency in November 2019; that officials at the highest levels of the Chinese government weighed in; and that urgent action was taken in an effort to address ongoing safety issues. The documents do not make clear who was responsible for the crisis, which laboratory it affected specifically, or what the exact nature of the biosafety emergency was.

The VF/PP article goes into considerable detail about how they came to this conclusion, which represents a consensus view of a range of experts that they consulted in and out of China. Their conclusions are well supported by multiple lines of evidence.

In addition to uncovering evidence of an “acute safety emergency” at WIV in the fall of 2019, VF/PP raise questions about the incredibly rapid development in China of a COVID-19 vaccine, but experts disagreed on the plausibility of the timeline:

Larry Kerr, who advised on the [HELP] interim report, called the timeline laid out in Zhou’s patent and research papers “scientifically, technically not possible.” He added, “I don’t think any molecular biology lab in the world, no matter how sophisticated, could pull that off.”

Rick Bright, the former HHS official who helped oversee vaccine development for the US government, told Vanity Fair and ProPublica that even a four-month timetable would be “aggressive,” especially when the virus in question is new. “Things aren’t usually that perfect,” he said.

Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told us the timetable was very fast but “feasible for a group with substantial existing expertise and ongoing work” on developing similar SARS-related coronavirus vaccines, but only if “everything went right.”

Zhou and his colleagues described their COVID-19 vaccine research in a preprint posted on May 2, 2020. When it was published in a peer-reviewed journal three months later, Reid found, Zhou was listed as “deceased.” The circumstances of his death have not been disclosed.

One key phrase in the Senate report can be found in its subtitle — “interim report.” This is not their final work. Indeed, VF/PP reported that the Senate HELP committee held back much of its analysis and material that it has obtained:

The Senate HELP minority committee did not release a detailed 236-page analysis that Reid drafted as a companion report. Nor did the interim report provide context for the documents he unearthed. These omissions came as hundreds of pages were whittled down to 35 in the days before the report was released. Though some members of the Senate team reviewed a small number of classified documents, the interim report relied only on publicly available material. A spokesperson for the Senate HELP minority committee told Vanity Fair and ProPublica: “What has been included in the interim report are the facts the Committee has determined are ready for, and worthy of, publication at this time. The Committee’s bipartisan oversight investigation is still ongoing, and what is worthy of inclusion will find its way into the final report.”

VF/PP also accurately characterized the toxic debate online among experts over COVID-19 origins:

The dispute over COVID-19’s origins, fought in the halls of Congress and on the web pages of scientific preprints, has become more toxic and divisive as time has passed. On Twitter, what should be scientific debate has devolved into a mosh pit of poop emojis and middle school insults. It is unclear what is driving the animus, but political advantage, egos, scientific reputations, and research dollars all hang in the balance.

Consider that I’m blocked on Twitter by some scientists most vocally opposed to even discussing the idea of a lab leak, as I am doing here. Given the direction that things are moving, history may not look kindly on these efforts to shut down reasonable discussions, regardless of what more is learned.

I endorse calls for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission focused on understanding COVID-19 origins, even if such an investigation is politically difficult due to geopolitics and uncomfortable to scientists who support risky research on pathogens. Francois Balloux of University College London yesterday described a possible “nightmare scenario”:

The nightmare scenario to me would not be the eventual confirmation of an accidental lab leak, but confirmation of a lab leak whose evidence has been aggressively suppressed.

Based on what we now know, that nightmare scenario seems to be closer than ever. Watch this space.

Comments, discussion and respectful and informed debate is welcomed.