We still don’t know where Covid-19 started, we’re pretty sure it started in or near Wuhan City. The main theories are that it started at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market (in Wuhan), a live animal food market, or at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a giant virus studies the center somewhere else in the city.
We would possibly never know, as we would like to know all the viruses studied in WIV up to the end of 2019, and the viruses might not even exist.
I’ve been undecided about this factor since the pandemic began (as I’ve written here and here and here), in part because we simply don’t have enough data. However, I am now starting to lean more strongly towards speculation that the Covid-19 virus started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I just listened to Sam Harris’ interview with science journalist Matt Ridley and virologist Alina Chan, who in combination wrote an entire e-book on the origins of Covid-19 and the evidence they have collected is compelling.
Let’s take a look at some key points.
First, the virus itself, SARS-CoV-2, almost originated in bats, and those bats almost arrived here from caves in southern China, more than 1000 kilometers from Wuhan. The bats did not reach Wuhan on their own.
So, they transported bats to the Huanan seafood market or brought bat viruses to the WIV. Those are our options.
Second, WIV had been researching coronavirus for years. Its scientists visited caves in southern China to locate new viruses and claimed that WIV labs had bat viruses, adding SARS-CoV-2-related viruses, before the pandemic began.
Third, and this is controversial, many scientists have argued that the virus occurs naturally. However, that doesn’t make it any more likely that the virus originated in the seafood market. WIV became infected, then returned home (perhaps avoiding the seafood market along the way) and triggered a global pandemic.
Fourth, it’s hard to believe that it’s just a coincidence that one of China’s most productive virology labs is located in the city where the pandemic began. Not only was WIV the first lab in China to work with SARS-like viruses, but they also claimed earlier that they intend to serve as lucrative paints to make those viruses more pathogenic.
This unexpected fact became evident when a 2018 grant proposal from EcoHealth Alliance, a U. S. -based nonprofit, was able to develop a grant proposal. The U. S. government working with WIV was leaked to the press in 2021. Although this proposal was never funded, the text describes how EcoHealth would genetically create new viruses. , taking the spike protein of one bat coronavirus and placing it in another, then infecting mice to see what happens.
But wait, some will say: we now have peer-reviewed studies indicating that the seafood market is the epicenter of the pandemic (I wrote about those studies in March 2022). However, as Alina Chan and Matt Ridley explained to Sam Harris (and in their book), the Chinese government in early 2020 focused all its attention on the seafood market, to the exclusion of anywhere else. They collected a lot of samples from other people who had been in or near the market, and very few for that. So, we seem to have an old case of confirmation bias: when you only look at where you are convinced the virus originated and find evidence, then you avoid looking. We just don’t know if the virus is elsewhere.
Now let’s move on to today’s main topic: the clinical error used to justify the pursuit of profit from serving as harmful viruses, the mistake that may have led to the Covid-19 pandemic. Let me explain.
Why, one might ask, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology passed into nature, humans would not pass otherwise and bring fatal viruses?
The United States is investing a major effort to do exactly the same thing: Through a program called DEEP VZN, USAID is investing scientists in the United States and Africa, Asia and Latin America to venture into uninhabited jungle spaces and locate virus-carrying animals that can infect humans. They expect (!) to notice 8,000 to 12,000 new viruses, and are interested in the viruses that may cause the next pandemic.
Why is anyone doing this? Virus hunters who through those efforts can wait for which of those viruses is destined to become the next pandemic. In addition, according to the argument, through gain-of-function research, virologists will be able to accurately figure out what the new pandemic is. You will see the strains. Then, armed with this information, they can convince governments and private corporations to design, manufacture, and purchase vaccines against those viruses. That way (according to the argument), when the pandemic arises, we’re going to be ready.
The core of this clinical strategy is an evolutionary error.
I’m going to have to be a little technical to explain it here, so be patient: the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus consists of about 30,000 RNA bases. The key protein that allows it to infect human cells is called the Spike protein. , which has a length of about 1300 amino acids and is encoded through about 3900 RNA bases. RNA has a four-letter alphabet (A, C, G, and U), which means that each of those positions can mutate into one of the other 3 letters. So we have about 12,000 mutations imaginable that have effects on a single base of the Spike protein.
But 2 or more mutations can occur at the same time, easily, and this can also make the virus more infectious. How many combinations of 2 positions and 3 mutations are possible? Well, about 650,000,000.
And those are the only mutations that can create a pandemic virus. Therefore, we pretend to believe that:
Yes, indeed. The evolutionary error is in the first previous point, along the way.
You might think that virologists, upon learning of the gain of serving as studies at WIV, would prevent and think, oh no, we hope our colleagues’ studies didn’t cause the pandemic!But instead, they closed ranks and doubled.
In case you think I’m exaggerating, this: Just a month ago, 156 virologists wrote an article in the Journal of Virology that said:
“With respect to gain-of-function studies, they can obviously advance pandemic preparedness and the progression of vaccines and antivirals. These tangible benefits far outweigh the theoretical dangers posed by modified viruses.
In case this is not transparent enough, they argue twice more in the article that income studies will prepare us for pandemics.
Virologists have been making this argument for years, and yet their reports had no benefit—none, zero, zip—when we were still facing a full-blown pandemic. Why do we deserve this statement now?
Instead, it is conceivable that gain-of-function research, as well as the search for new viruses in nature, have accidentally caused the pandemic.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that the vast majority of studies on viruses and infectious diseases are incredibly important. Vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and other remedies have saved millions of lives, and the scientists who make these paintings deserve to be applauded. Out-of-function studies, that is, studies designed to take a virus or bacteria and make them more fatal in humans or other animals, would be only for a small percentage of virologists in the world. Let’s tell them to stop. If they can’t find anything bigger to do, other scientists can.