I think it’s important to note that there are really two “lab leak” theories:
One in which the virus developed naturally, was collected in a remote location, and was being studied in a lab when it leaked from the lab into nearby human society.
One in which it was not a dangerous virus originally, and it became dangerous in the lab through human agency, either maliciously (e.g. bioweapons research) or accidentally (e.g. gain-of-function research).
Note that in the first theory, the virus has a natural origin, but the pandemic originates in the lab leak.
These two theories get mixed up constantly, either by accident or on purpose, who knows. For example look at this CNN story:
First paragraph: “The CIA now assesses the virus that causes Covid-19 more likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China, rather than occurring naturally”
Deeper in the story: “Every US intelligence agency still unanimously maintains that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon” and “almost all American intelligence agencies also assess that the virus itself was not genetically engineered.”
So it didn’t occur “naturally” but also wasn’t developed or engineered. Makes no sense.
> These two theories get mixed up constantly, either by accident or on purpose, who knows
I'm struggling to see the practical difference. Ebola naturally evolved. I'm not sure I'm be more incensed if an American lab released natural versus artifical Ebola into the population.
The practical difference is that many of the arguments against lab-leak theories in general are actually arguments against the gain-of-function theory in particular. Things like lack of markers that would indicate engineering, or the presence of markers that would indicate animal origins. So distinguishing the two candidate theories becomes important for discerning whether the evidence is for or against a lab leak: you can't use animal-origins evidence as evidence against a lab leak, only evidence against an engineered virus.
Intentionally seeking out potentially harmful natural pathogens from remote locations and placing them in close proximity to people isn't relevant to lab leaks? Then why are they studied under high levels of security in the first place?
GoF research is so obviously a bad idea. The risks are enormous and the rewards are minuscule. But lab leaks of natural viruses are indicative of problems too.
One way to look at the difference is that a "natural Ebola" almost certainly would have spread at some point anyways, and so it wouldn't affect the total number of world deaths in the end, just make them happen some number of years sooner.
Whereas an "artificial Ebola" would never have existed without it being intentionally created, so all the deaths aren't just time-shifted, they wouldn't have happened otherwise. They're new.
I think the natural-virus-leaked-by-lab theory hinges on the argument that, (assuming it was true, then) had the lab leak not have happened, SARS-CoV-2 wouldn't have made to jump to human by itself. And this is where the Ebola analogy breaks down. Because SARS-CoV-2 has a higher basic reproduction number than Ebola, meaning it's more transmissible. And it's also much less deadly than Ebola, meaning it has much more opportunities to spread.
Remember, it is a virus that caused a global pandemic, despite all the efforts made to stop it. Based on that, I think it is highly likely that whether the lab leaked it or not, it would have made its way to humans by itself. In other words, there would effectively be no way to tell one scenario from the other.
It guides policy. If it was engineered, it means this is research we really shouldn't be doing. If it was a wild virus being researched, it means we need to take the threat of spillover more seriously.
You may distinguish a 100 different lab leak theories, but they do have one thing in common: the virus came from the Wuhan lab. And it's not as if people are going to shrug and say: well, it only costs 100 of thousands or even millions of lives, and still cripples a great many, but forgive and forget.
The best theory I’ve ever read, wrote about miners working in caves with bat who came down with serious pneumonia, or something like that, in the area that the lab sampled viruses from.
The viruses could evolve quite a lot in an immunocompromised individual.
The virus was then probably leaked as part of the work to sequence its genome. So they wouldn’t have published anything on it yet.
I don’t think they did any GoF research or engineered the virus in any way.
I’m fairly certain China knows a lot more about what actually happened though.
>These two theories get mixed up constantly, either by accident or on purpose, who knows.
You literally just reduced 3 theories to 2: lab leak natural virus, lab leak medical GoF, and lab leak bioweapon. These theories get collapsed because there's no practical way to distinguish between them. A 4th theory, intentional release, is often used as a weakman for all lab leak theories, but isn't actually a leak at all.
>So it didn’t occur “naturally” but also wasn’t developed or engineered. Makes no sense.
Yeah, someone wants to split hairs, but it's impossible without knowing the specific definitions they want.
You've made great points throughout this entire post. This is yet another that I've just upvoted (from having been downvoted). But in each you've been needlessly aggressive and hostile. Everyone here knows how frustrating COVID-19 can be to discuss—as is the case with most topics worth discussing. But it's less frustrating when we all implicitly agree to stick to our thoughtful great points.
One in which the virus developed naturally, was collected in a remote location, and was being studied in a lab when it leaked from the lab into nearby human society.
One in which it was not a dangerous virus originally, and it became dangerous in the lab through human agency, either maliciously (e.g. bioweapons research) or accidentally (e.g. gain-of-function research).
Note that in the first theory, the virus has a natural origin, but the pandemic originates in the lab leak.
These two theories get mixed up constantly, either by accident or on purpose, who knows. For example look at this CNN story:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/25/politics/covid-19-lab-lea...
First paragraph: “The CIA now assesses the virus that causes Covid-19 more likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China, rather than occurring naturally”
Deeper in the story: “Every US intelligence agency still unanimously maintains that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon” and “almost all American intelligence agencies also assess that the virus itself was not genetically engineered.”
So it didn’t occur “naturally” but also wasn’t developed or engineered. Makes no sense.