Covid did not escape from the freaking lab
A story of biology, group-think, and base rate neglect from someone who was actually once certified to work with BSL-2 level pathogens (one level below Covid-19)
A seemingly large number of my friends, as well as pretty much everyone online who I read, now believe in the Covid Lab Leak Theory. I had not really looked closely into it myself until about a year ago. It seemed at least feasible, having spent some time in labs myself. Besides, dangerous biological agents have escaped from labs before. This opinion has slowly but surely become the mainstream view among my peers. If everyone including the FBI says it came from the lab, that’s probably true, right? But a year ago I was writing an essay about Joe Rogan, and ended up doing my own review.
If only Karl Popper had a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, so he could beat Joe Rogan's ass
I don’t know why I sometimes come up with these rants. But I think I just have to get them out of my system. If even one reader has a different perspective, or learned something about critical thinking after this, it has helped. For the record, I don’t really enjoy writing rants and I think I’ll try to minimize them. Here it goes.
That led me to conclude it is far less likely that the virus escaped from a lab, than that it simply jumped from bats like every other pandemic causing germ. Although it’s not possible to completely rule out the Lab leak, I would give it at least 1000 to 1 odds compared to the animal theory. Sometimes when I’m idling on a run or commute I tend to rehash these kinds of arguments in a pretend debate against some public figure like Elon Musk. So, I thought I’d just write it down and get it out my system once and for all. I am highly, highly confident that I’m right on this one, and yet, somehow, it feels like I am saying something heterodox and slightly dangerous now.
The basic setup
Some time in mid-late 2019 the first human case of Covid-19 happened in or near Wuhan, China. The first big cluster of cases centered on the Wuhan wildlife market, where high concentrations of virus were found in the waste water and in the animals. However, there is also a lab near Wuhan where research was being done on Coronaviruses by a team led by one Dr. Shi Zhengli.
The first version of Covid-19 found at the wildlife market is genetically too different from the closest two analogues found in bats. We’re missing a step. Patient zero for Covid-19 was never found, and by now never will, so we will never find the missing transmission/mutation steps to get from animal version to human version, if that’s what happened. The research being done in the lab was not on live viruses but only on partial genetic sequences, hence no live virus was present. The team has also from day one stated their clear case that the stuff in their research was not related to the live virus.
But, early on, the Chinese tried to suppress the existence of the virus, silenced medical professionals and delayed reporting key data. That is pretty suspicious, and that lack of transparency fueled the rumour mills. Based on a variety of data that was released later on the exact research being done in the Wuhan Lab, there is indeed nothing in there that links to the virus.
Taking all the available data at face value, there is more evidence for an origin in animals (2,3,4,5), but it’s not watertight. Since it’s not unfair to assume some systemic dishonesty of the Chinese government (or governments in general), we can’t rule out that they are hiding something. So in deciding between Lab Leak or Zoonotic (animal) origin, there is no way to be 100% sure of one or the other. Any decision must come with a certain probability statement. Even the turning point for mainstream opinion, when the FBI said it was ‘plausible’ that the virus came from the lab makes a probability statement in the word plausible.
Well, I give it at least 1000 to 1 odds (meaning I’m 99.9% sure) that the virus jumped from animals. And here’s why.
Base rate neglect, point 1
New disease outbreaks are almost always first detected in a big city. It needs a city to form a cluster large enough to be noticed. Almost every big city in China (and elsewhere) has a lab that studies viruses. So there is a near 100% probability that a virology lab is — coincidentally — present in the city where an outbreak starts.
Base rate neglect, point 2
It would be fun to use Elon Musk’s own argument for the simulation theory against him. If you assume that humans will get better and better at building virtual worlds with virtual humans, then at some point the virtual worlds will become indistinguishable from the real one for the participants. If that happens, there will be millions of indistinguishable virtual worlds to just one real world. Therefore, the probability that we, right now, are living in a simulation is millions to one, i.e. it is 99.999999% sure we’re living in a simulation. Let’s apply this to viruses.
Pathogens do escape from labs regularly. But only about once every couple of years (0.75x per year). In contrast, scientists estimate there are likely hundreds of thousands to millions of animal-to-human transmission events annually worldwide. Most of these go undetected or cause only isolated cases. With regard to potentially harmful new pathogens, A 2014 study identified that about 3 novel pathogens capable of causing significant human disease emerge annually. Taking this 0.75 and 3 number simply at face value, one could say that gives us 1:4 odds in favor of animal spillover, or 80% probability in a city where a pandemic occurs and a lab is present, that the pandemic is zoonotic.
But both the rate of escape of viruses from labs, and the rate of them jumping over from animals to humans are probably understated. Which one do you think is understated more? How many labs are there in the word, in total? Claude puts the number at 3.5 - 4k. How many animals? Thousands of species (bats, rodents, primates, carnivores, ungulates, birds) serving as viral reservoirs. Potentially 850,000 viruses that could jump to humans. Billions of individual animals in constant contact with humans and each other.
Whoops.
Occam’s razor
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
If it jumped from animals, we need:
Coronavirus in wildlife that can infect humans → ✓ Common in bats and pangolins
Wildlife in contact with humans → ✓ Market sold 38+ species
An exposure event → ✓ 10,000 visitors/day, live slaughter
That’s it. All the pieces we need were present.
If it escaped from the lab, we need:
Wuhan Lab was working on SARS-CoV-2 specifically → ✗ No evidence in published works
It escaped despite BSL-3/4 protocols → ? Possible but uncommon
Infected lab worker transmitted to community undetected → ? Despite workplace health monitoring and later contact tracing, no lab-connected cases were found
First cluster centered on market 800m away from the lab with heavy cirulation in animals present → ? Very suspicious “coincidence”
Government successfully hid all evidence → ? Would require perfect cover-up
Five things need to be true for the Lab leak, and one of them is a successful cover-up.
There are lots of logical flaws in the lab leak arguments
From Wikipedia:
The lab leak theory is not a single discrete proposed scenario, but a collection of various proposed scenarios on a spectrum with, at one end, a careless accident from legitimate research; at the other, the engineering and release of a Chinese biological weapon.[19] While the proposed scenarios are theoretically subject to evidence-based investigation, it is not clear that any can be sufficiently falsified to placate lab leak supporters, as they are based on pseudoscientific and conspiratorial thinking.[19]
If you still aren’t convinced:
Having reconsidered everything again, I think I’d bet even more strongly on the Zoonotic origin, maybe even at 100,000 to 1 odds. But does that even matter? I think it’s safe to just leave it at saying we can be almost sure, like every other pandemic, Covid-19 jumped over from animals. I find it quite funny that this take is now the ‘controversial’ one.