Stop the conspiracy about COVID-19 “lab leak” theory

Susan R. Weiss, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania 

 

Every honesty virologist knows that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin, and was transmitted from an animal to humans. But, in the recent days the talk about an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – where bat coronaviruses are modified to become more infectious to humans – was largely becoming the public discussion. In fact, not only most scientists but also the us Intelligence community admit that it is a truly conspiracy theory.

conspiracy have no evidence

But now there is more noise than signal here. The lab-leak hypotheses have no evidence. It dominates the origin of the pandemic, shoving aside the natural zoonosis hypothesis — which asserts that, like so many previous infectious pathogens, the novel coronavirus most likely jumped unassisted into the human population from a still-unidentified animal host.

Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory is becoming popular. President Joe Biden’s order to the intelligence community in May to redouble efforts to study the virus’ origins has given the issue more currency, though the administration hasn’t new information. But now Spy agencies conducting the review have yet to find conclusive evidence that the virus was leaked from a Chinese government virology lab.

Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, has admitted that the true origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed 600,000 Americans and almost 4 million people worldwide, may never be known in June. As the top U.S. intelligence official, Haines confrmed that the us intelligence community have no evidence about the lab-leak hypotheses. In fact, April 30, 2020, one more years ago, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence put out an statement whose apparent goal was to suppress a growing furor around the lab-leak theory. It said that the intelligence community “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified”.

Recently, the “growing evidence” simply isn’t there. Take the report of the sick lab workers: “What does it mean that three people, out of a large research staff, were sick with flu-like symptoms in flu season?” Snappy headlines highlighting that the workers “sought hospital care” fall apart when the context is considered; in China, primary care is largely delivered through hospitals, and sick notes are compulsory for time off. Visiting a hospital in Wuhan was the equivalent of a trip to the doctor’s office in the United States.

The common view of scientists

So where did this awful thing come from? On February 19, 2020, The Lancet, among the most respected and influential medical journals in the world, published a statement that roundly rejected the lab-leak hypothesis, effectively casting it as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism. Signed by 27 scientists, the statement expressed “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China” and asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

The co-signed a letter saying SARS-CoV-2 was not a bioengineered virus and condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” That remains the consensus of many scientists — but the “lab leak” theory has never gone away and has become louder than ever. It is not a theory so much as a constellation of scenarios that imagine how the virus may have emanated from a laboratory in China, ranging from the accidental to the sinister.

Recently, these 27 scientists have individually received inquiries asking whether they still support what they said in early 2020. So they published the second statement in July that their answer is still clear: they reaffirm the expression of solidarity with those in China who confronted the outbreak then, and the many health professionals around the world who have since worked to exhaustion, and at personal risk, in the relentless and continuing battle against this virus.

historical example

A century ago, in the early weeks of the 1918 influenza epidemic, American newspapers circulated reports that germs had been unleashed on the United States by German submarines. With Germany at war with the United States, there was a strong popular impulse to blame the enemy power for the pandemic. Yet instead of encouraging such conspiratorial thinking, U.S. authorities and the press initially acknowledged the limited evidence for these charges and the government soon issued a public denial. This history suggests that what is needed today is a transparent investigation and clear communication from political leaders, lest xenophobia and heightened tensions fuel runaway allegations. This historical example provides important lessons now as we try to make sense of the rumors about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Coupling an investigation with an appraisal of US public health failures over the past year and a half — the shortage of personal protective equipment, inaccurate statements about airborne transmission, inconsistent guidance on masks and uneven distribution of vaccines — offers the best hope of preventing a repeat in the future.

Where once, in early 2020, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence pointed toward COVID-19 being of natural origin, now the lab leak theory is gaining steam. But it’s a mirage. Despite proclamations to the contrary, there has been scant new, hard evidence pointing to the lab leak theory.

Disinformation and conspiracy

As the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, we face the challenge of an overabundance of information related to the virus. Some of this information may be false and potentially harmful. Disinformation, unsubstantiated claims, and personal attacks on scientists surrounding the different theories of how the virus emerged are unacceptable, and are sowing public confusion and risk undermining the public’s trust in science and scientists, including those still leading efforts to bring the pandemic under control. It’s deeply disheartening to see this terribly difficult worldwide situation that has taken almost 4 million lives and somehow turned into a motivation to demonize some of the scientists who have done the most to try to get through this.

The impact of the pandemic virtually everywhere in the world has been far worse than even these numbers suggest, with unprecedented additional social, cultural, political, and economic consequences that have exposed numerous flaws in our epidemic and pandemic preparedness and in local and global political and economic systems. We have observed escalations of conflicts that pit many parties against one another, including central government versus local government, young versus old, rich versus poor, people of colour versus white people, and health priorities versus the economy.

The stakes are high, and crucial pieces of information are absent. As a result, the quest to understand the origin of the pandemic has been caught up in political battles and ideological maelstroms. There’s a hunt for villains before the crime has been fully documented.

The lab-leak conspiracy has became the domestic political battle field. Democrats worry that murky conclusions that don’t identify the origin of the virus could play into the Republicans’ hands, while evidence that might disprove the lab leak theory will trigger more accusations of a cover-up. On the other side, the bitter cold war between the two superpowers over the last two years has threatened the whole world.It is clearly not a good time for the world and it is not a good time for relations between the US and China. the origin of COVID-19 is the clearest battlefield that U.S regard the CCP’s ideology asa direct threat to the the world. The crisis has highlighted the urgent need to build a better understanding of how science proceeds and the complex, but critical, links science has with health, public health, and politics.

Some countries have done much better than others in dealing with the health and economic consequences of COVID-19. Although some of these countries are small or relatively isolated, by most metrics, the country with the most competent response was the biggest: China. The country has also been a major beneciary with some states now looking to Beijing for leadership. But instead of condemning China’s response or demanding reparations for the pandemic’s costs, other countries,specially including US, should consider how to use Beijing’s examples.