Following Alice down a rabbit hole on COVID-19 origins

See updates through March 16, 2023, at end of post.


It’s fair to say that Michael Hiltzik is not impressed by[1] the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of a Department of Energy conclusion favoring the lab leak hypothesis of COVID-19’s origins.[2]

If you’re confused about how a judgment made with “low confidence” can result in a conclusion that something is “most likely,” join the club. I’ll come back to that. But let’s start with the basics: There is no evidence — not a smidgen, particle, speck or iota — that COVID leaked from a lab. There never has been.

The virology and epidemiology communities, which base their conclusions on empirical data, overwhelmingly favor the conclusion that the pandemic originated in human contacts with infected wildlife, known as the “zoonotic” hypothesis. That’s how previous pathogens reached the human community, and the evidence that it has done so in this case is powerful and getting progressively stronger.[3]

I wrote early Monday (February 27) morning,

The Department of Energy has concluded, with “low confidence,” that a lab leak is the most likely source of COVID-19. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had earlier reached a similar conclusion with “moderate confidence.”[4] The reason the lab leak hypothesis lives is that [a non-human] animal source has not been conclusively identified and the expectation is that such a source for a zoonotic disease should surely have been identified by now. And it doesn’t help that the Chinese have been less than forthcoming about what may or may not have happened at their labs.[5]

But the truth is that an absence of evidence is an absence of evidence, nothing more, nothing less. It is reasonable to be suspicious. It is not reasonable to affirm any conclusion. And nothing about any perceived need for such a conclusion changes that.[6]

I have not seen that the evidence for the zoonotic hypothesis has, as Hiltzik claims, gotten stronger.[7] If anything, it should be getting weaker with the continued failure to identify a non-human animal vector.[8]

Certainly, as Hiltzik explains, if the Wuhan lab was the origin of the pandemic, we would expect infections to have occurred within the vast urban space between that lab and the Wuhan wet market believed to have been the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.[9] But this would not be new evidence. And that the Chinese seem to be hiding something[10] does suggest that there may be more to the story.

Unfortunately, barring regime change in Beijing, we’re unlikely ever to know. Just as “an absence of evidence is an absence of evidence, nothing more, nothing less,”[11] so it is with suspicion: Suspicion is suspicion, nothing more, nothing less. We lack the data to go further.

Hiltzik seems to attribute a need for a conclusion that goes beyond available evidence to forthcoming subcommittee hearings on COVID-19 in the now Republican-controlled House of Representatives:[12]

Soon we’ll be hearing from the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus, which comprises quite the lineup of sober Republicans interested only in the truth.

Its GOP members include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was permanently suspended by Twitter last year after she falsely claimed that COVID was “not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65,” that the COVID vaccines were “failing,” and that they caused an “extremely high” death toll. (Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, restored her account.)

Another member, Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, claimed that the Omicron variant of the virus was a Democratic hoax aimed at pushing mail-in ballot rules.

Then there’s Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, who falsely claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were going to mandate the COVID vaccine for children (never happened), and Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania, who threw a fit over “vaccine passports,” which were always a right-wing fever dream.

Also on the committee are Republican Reps. Rich McCormick of Georgia, who claimed fancifully that masks are harmful to childrens’ health; and Michael Cloud of Texas, who has gone on record blaming the Chinese government for the pandemic.[13]

Sounds like we’ll be learning of a few conclusions that go beyond, probably far beyond, available evidence.


Update, March 15, 2023: Somebody, Michael Worobey, did his own research. And concluded that the Wuhan wet market was indeed the most likely source of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll probably never know specifically which species passed the disease onto humans because testing of the animals was not done.[14] I’m far outside my field here, but at least the way Karen Kaplan presents it, this seems like pretty solid work.

The wet markets seem particularly egregious, but I have previously addressed implications of the zoonotic hypothesis.[15] And it’s not even remotely like COVID-19 is the first disease to implicate our relationship with non-human animals.[16]

The trouble here is that, like with guns, a lot of politically-oriented toxic masculinity is bound up with that relationship. Even without that toxic masculinity, a particular notion of allegedly divinely-ordained “natural order”[17] is bound up in that relationship.

To challenge that relationship is to draw upon oneself a fury that too many vegan activists have already experienced.


Update, March 16, 2023: So. I had just reconciled myself to the idea that we might never know which nonhuman animal passed COVID-19 onto humans,[18] when here comes evidence suggesting it was raccoon dogs.[19]

[The zoonotic] hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there.

This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. A new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying and possibly shedding the virus at the end of 2019. It’s some of the strongest support yet, experts told me, that the pandemic began when SARS-CoV-2 hopped from animals into humans, rather than in an accident among scientists experimenting with viruses.

“This really strengthens the case for a natural origin,” says Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University who wasn’t involved in the research. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist involved in the research, told me, “This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.” . . .

Finding the genetic material of virus and mammal so closely co-mingled—enough to be extracted out of a single swab—isn’t perfect proof, [Seema] Lakdawala told me. “It’s an important step; I’m not going to diminish that,” she said. Still, the evidence falls short of, say, isolating SARS-CoV-2 from a free-ranging raccoon dog or, even better, uncovering a viral sample swabbed from a mammal for sale at Huanan from the time of the outbreak’s onset. That would be the virological equivalent of catching a culprit red-handed. But “you can never go back in time and capture those animals,” says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. And to researchers’ knowledge, “raccoon dogs were not tested at the market and had likely been removed prior to the authorities coming in,” [Kristian] Andersen wrote to me in an email. He underscored that the findings, although an important addition, are not “direct evidence of infected raccoon dogs at the market.”[20]

But there’s also that other work,[21] which seems pretty convincing, and a lot of other work that precedes it.[22]

So, okay, I may yet be wrong. But the lab leak hypothesis is looking pretty fucking weak.[23] And the zoonotic hypothesis is looking pretty fucking strong.[24] This might be the best answer we can get.

And what I wrote before still stands:

The trouble here is that, like with guns, a lot of politically-oriented toxic masculinity is bound up in that relationship. Even without that toxic masculinity, a particular notion of allegedly divinely-ordained “natural order”[25] is bound up in that relationship.

To challenge that relationship is to draw upon oneself a fury that too many vegan activists have already experienced.[26]

So count on the argument continuing.

If this new level of scientific evidence does conclusively tip the origins debate toward the animal route, it will be, in one way, a major letdown. It will mean that SARS-CoV-2 breached our borders because we once again mismanaged our relationship with wildlife—that we failed to prevent this epidemic for the same reason we failed, and could fail again, to prevent so many of the rest.[27]

  1. [1]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  2. [2]Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a
  3. [3]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  4. [4]Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a
  5. [5]Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a; Deborah Netburn, “Did the coronavirus escape from a lab? The idea deserves a second look, scientists say,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-05-13/did-coronavirus-escape-from-lab-scientists-urge-second-look; Matthew Rozsa, “A virologist unpacks the lab leak hypothesis,” Salon, May 29, 2021, https://www.salon.com/2021/05/29/a-virologist-unpacks-the-lab-leak-hypothesis/
  6. [6]David Benfell, “Too many lips a flappin’,” Irregular Bullshit, February 27, 2023, https://disunitedstates.com/2023/02/27/too-many-lips-a-flappin/
  7. [7]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  8. [8]Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a; Deborah Netburn, “Did the coronavirus escape from a lab? The idea deserves a second look, scientists say,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-05-13/did-coronavirus-escape-from-lab-scientists-urge-second-look; Matthew Rozsa, “A virologist unpacks the lab leak hypothesis,” Salon, May 29, 2021, https://www.salon.com/2021/05/29/a-virologist-unpacks-the-lab-leak-hypothesis/
  9. [9]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  10. [10]Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a; Deborah Netburn, “Did the coronavirus escape from a lab? The idea deserves a second look, scientists say,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-05-13/did-coronavirus-escape-from-lab-scientists-urge-second-look; Matthew Rozsa, “A virologist unpacks the lab leak hypothesis,” Salon, May 29, 2021, https://www.salon.com/2021/05/29/a-virologist-unpacks-the-lab-leak-hypothesis/
  11. [11]David Benfell, “Too many lips a flappin’,” Irregular Bullshit, February 27, 2023, https://disunitedstates.com/2023/02/27/too-many-lips-a-flappin/
  12. [12]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  13. [13]Michael Hiltzik, “Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-27/contrary-wsj-claim-theres-still-not-a-speck-of-evidence-that-covid-escaped-from-a-chinese-lab
  14. [14]Karen Kaplan, “The problem with the lab leak theory,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2023-03-14/coronavirus-today-the-problem-with-the-lab-leak-theory-covid-wuhan-market-coronavirus-today
  15. [15]David Benfell, “Elite priorities: Why social, animal, and environmental justice remains essential with COVID-19,” Not Housebroken, April 26, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/26/elite-priorities-why-social-animal-and-environmental-justice-remains-essential-with-covid-19/
  16. [16]Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
  17. [17]George Lakoff, Moral Politics, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002).
  18. [18]Karen Kaplan, “The problem with the lab leak theory,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2023-03-14/coronavirus-today-the-problem-with-the-lab-leak-theory-covid-wuhan-market-coronavirus-today
  19. [19]Katherine J. Wu, “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” Atlantic, March 16, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
  20. [20]Katherine J. Wu, “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” Atlantic, March 16, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
  21. [21]Karen Kaplan, “The problem with the lab leak theory,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2023-03-14/coronavirus-today-the-problem-with-the-lab-leak-theory-covid-wuhan-market-coronavirus-today
  22. [22]Katherine J. Wu, “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” Atlantic, March 16, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
  23. [23]Karen Kaplan, “The problem with the lab leak theory,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/science/newsletter/2023-03-14/coronavirus-today-the-problem-with-the-lab-leak-theory-covid-wuhan-market-coronavirus-today
  24. [24]Katherine J. Wu, “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” Atlantic, March 16, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
  25. [25]George Lakoff, Moral Politics, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002).
  26. [26]David Benfell, “Zoonotic hypothesis for the origin of COVID-19 affirmed,” Irregular Bullshit, March 15, 2023, https://disunitedstates.com/2023/03/15/zoonotic-hypothesis-for-the-origin-of-covid-19-affirmed/
  27. [27]Katherine J. Wu, “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic,” Atlantic, March 16, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/

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