World Health Organization (WHO) report on the lab leak conspiracy theory

There's been a lot of talk about the possibility that SAR-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and accidentally escaped, causing the COVID-19 pandemic. There's no evidence that directly supports this possibility and plenty of evidence that casts serious doubt on the lab leak hypothesis. In order to discount the evidence against the hypothesis its supporters claim that scientists are lying and covering up the accidental release with the active cooperation of the Chinese government. Thus, an original scientific hypothesis has morphed into a full-blown conspiracy theory.

As with any conspiracy theory, there are all kinds of "facts" that have only been uncovered on twitter or Reddit but there are also speculations published by the Trump administration. It's very difficult verify or refute many of these "facts."

However, there's one fact that is widely misinterpreted and that's the report of the WHO scientists who visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in order to investigate the lab leak hypothesis. They concluded that it was "extremely unlikely" so, as you might expect, the WHO scientists are now part of the conspiracy. Here's a copy of the section on the lab leak hypothesis from the WHO full report issued on March 30 2021 [WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part].

Introduction through a laboratory incident

Explanation of hypothesis

SARS-CoV-2 is introduced through a laboratory incident, reflecting an accidental infection of staff from laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses. We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome (3).

Arguments in favour

Although rare, laboratory accidents do happen, and different laboratories around the world are working with bat CoVs. When working in particular with virus cultures, but also with animal inoculations or clinical samples, humans could become infected in laboratories with limited biosafety, poor laboratory management practice, or following negligence. The closest known CoV RaTG13 strain (96.2%) to SARS-CoV-2 detected in bat anal swabs have been sequenced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. Such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.

Arguments against

The closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 from bats and pangolin are evolutionarily distant from SARS-CoV-2. There has been speculation regarding the presence of human ACE2 receptor binding and a furin-cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2, but both have been found in animal viruses as well, and elements of the furin-cleavage site are present in RmYN02 and the new Thailand bat SARSr-CoV. There is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019, or genomes that in combination could provide a SARS-CoV-2 genome. Regarding accidental culture, prior to December 2019, there is no evidence of circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among people globally and the surveillance programme in place was limited regarding the number of samples processed and thereforethe risk of accidental culturing SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory is extremely low. The three laboratories in Wuhan working with either CoVs diagnostics and/or CoVs isolation and vaccine development all had high quality biosafety level (BSL3 or 4) facilities that were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring programme with no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019, and no serological evidence of infection in workers through SARS-CoV-2-specific serology-screening. The Wuhan CDC lab which moved on 2nd December 2019 reported no disruptions or incidents caused by the move. They also reported no storage nor laboratory activities on CoVs or other bat viruses preceding the outbreak.

Assessment of likelihood

In view of the above, a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely.

Please refer to the original report whenever you see the conspiracy theorists making claims about what WHO did or did not report. Those claims are not always accurate; for example, it is widely reported that WHO confirmed that there were COVID-19 case among lab workers in the autumn of 2019 but, as you can see, WHO refuted that part of the conspiracy theory.

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Lab leak conspiracy theory rears its ugly head again: this time it's Nicholas Wade of the New York Times

Nicholas Wade used to be a serious science writer but he lost that title many years ago when he proved that he was incapable of distinguishing fact from wishful thinking [Nicholas Wade on the Origin of Life ]. Now he's gone completely bonkers by promoting the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was started when the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a lab at the Whuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) [Origin of Covid — Following the Clues].

Nicholas Wade claims that the virologists at the WIV, led by Dr. Shi, created the SARS-CoV-2 virus by genetic engineering. Their goal, according to Wade, was to make a virus that was as deadly to humans as possible in order to study its effects in the lab. Unfortunately, the virus escaped from the lab, according to Wade, and started the pandemic.

Shi Zhengli responded to those silly accusations in July 2020 [Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out].

On 15 July, Shi emailed Science answers to a series of questions about the virus' origin and her research. In them, she hit back at speculation that the virus leaked from WIV. She and her colleagues discovered the virus in late 2019, she says, in samples from patients who had a pneumonia of unknown origin. “Before that, we had never been in contact with or studied this virus, nor did we know of its existence,” Shi wrote.

“U.S. President Trump's claim that SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from our institute totally contradicts the facts,” she added. “It jeopardizes and affects our academic work and personal life. He owes us an apology.”

Why is this a conspiracy theory? Because the speculation has been investigated by WHO scientists who found no evidence to support it. They saw that the lab protocols at the Institute were very good, as you would expect for a world class lab that was studying dangerous viruses that were known to cause pandemics. Furthermore, none of the workers at the lab tested positive for COVID-19 and none of them were studying any virus that resembled SARS-CoV-19. So, in order for the lab leak hypothesis to be true there has to have been a massive coverup by a very large number of people. That's what makes it a conspriacy theory.

Nicholas Wade gets a lot of his information from Richard Ebright who has been promoting the lab leak conspiracy theory for the past year. Ebright thinks the WHO investigators "... were willing—and in at least one case, enthusiastic—participants in disinformation" [An Interview with Richard Ebright: The WHO Investigation Members Were “participants in disinformation”]. This is classic conspiracy theory stuff: everyone who disagrees with you is part of the conspiracy.

If you still think the lab leak conspiracy theory is true then I urge you to watch this video of a talk by Professor Edward ("Eddy") Holmes, the 2020 New South Wales (Australia) scientist of the year and an expert on human viruses, especially the coronoviruses [The Discovery and Origins of SARS-CoV-2]. He explains why the viruses are likely to orginate in bats and explains why this particular virus started off in bats but probably passed though an intermediate host before reaching humans. (His preferred intermediate host is racoon dogs and he explains why he thinks this is likely.) He explains why the sequence of the virus is entrely consistent with a natural origin. He describes his field work in China and Southeast Asia and his collaborations with the expert scientists in China, including those at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Holmes, addreses the conspiracy theory at 41:45 minutes into the talk so you can skip rght to there if you like—although I don't recommend it because there's lots of useful information in the first 40 minutes. Here's why he rejects that cosnspiracy theory and why you should too. These are the facts, according to Holmes. I agree with him.

• There's "no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is engineered (and no reason to bioengineer a random bat virus)." Holmes calls this idea is "absolute nonsense." I'm guessing he won't be a fan of Nicholas Wade's article.
• "Bat virus RaTG13 is not the direct ancestor of SAR-CoV-2—all the components of the virus exist in nature."
• "No evidence of a secret SARS-CoV-2-like virus kept at the WIV (and no reason to keep it a secret before the pandemic)." The scientists at WIV say that they were not studying such a virus and Holmes says, "Frankly, I believe them." Nicholas Wade thinks they are lying but offers no proof and no reason to justify the lie.
• The SARS-CoV-2 virus is probably not directly from bats and WIV was only studying bat viruses. Furthermore, the virus is probably not from Yunnan province where the Wuhan Institute of Virology is located.
• "SARS-CoV-2 was not perfectly adapted to humans on first emergence and appears to be a "generalist" virus." Nicholas Wade is wrong about this as well.
• "Cases near WIV only appeared later in the outbreak." The first cases in Wuhan appear in the market, specifically in the area where live animals are sold. This strongly suggests that the virus came from animals in the market and that it originated in those animals somewhere else. There were cases in December 2019 that were not linked to the market but they were nowhere near the WIV.
• "No evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection at WIH—staff were PCR/antibody negative." Holmes says that if this is true then that rules out the lab leak hypothesis automatically. He's says that either this is the biggest coverup in history and they're all lying or there's no evidence at all that the virus was ever in the lab. He concludes that the virus did not come from the lab but he's sure that the conspiracy theory is not going to go away anytime soon.

Holmes is right. The conspiracy theory is not going away because its proponents think that all Chinese are evil and can't be trusted. Those conspiracy believers are wrong. Please don't spread this ridiculous idea; it makes you no better than QAnon cultists.

If you're really interested in the facts then there are several articles on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that you should read before falling for the lab leak conspiracy thoery. Here's one.

MacLean, O.A., Lytras, S., Weaver, S., Singer, J.B., Boni, M.F., Lemey, P., Pond, S.L.K. and Robertson, D.L. (2021) Natural selection in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in bats created a generalist virus and highly capable human pathogen. PLoS Biology 19:e3001115. [doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001115]

Virus host shifts are generally associated with novel adaptations to exploit the cells of the new host species optimally. Surprisingly, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has apparently required little to no significant adaptation to humans since the start of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and to October 2020. Here we assess the types of natural selection taking place in Sarbecoviruses in horseshoe bats versus the early SARS-CoV-2 evolution in humans. While there is moderate evidence of diversifying positive selection in SARS-CoV-2 in humans, it is limited to the early phase of the pandemic, and purifying selection is much weaker in SARS-CoV-2 than in related bat Sarbecoviruses. In contrast, our analysis detects evidence for significant positive episodic diversifying selection acting at the base of the bat virus lineage SARS-CoV-2 emerged from, accompanied by an adaptive depletion in CpG composition presumed to be linked to the action of antiviral mechanisms in these ancestral bat hosts. The closest bat virus to SARS-CoV-2, RmYN02 (sharing an ancestor about 1976), is a recombinant with a structure that includes differential CpG content in Spike; clear evidence of coinfection and evolution in bats without involvement of other species. While an undiscovered “facilitating” intermediate species cannot be discounted, collectively, our results support the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 being capable of efficient human–human transmission as a consequence of its adaptive evolutionary history in bats, not humans, which created a relatively generalist virus.

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