Sunetra Gupta's View on the Origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the 'Threat' Posed by Gain-of-Function Research
Lab-leak/wet-market scenarios are 'equally implausible' and claims about threats posed by GoF research 'overblown' (including by a 'very nervous' Tony Fauci)
In this companion to Claim of Function - It Wasn't a Lab-leak and Neither Was It from the Wet-Market, I share comments Sunetra Gupta made during Panel 4: COVID-19 Origins and the Regulation of Virology at the Stanford University symposium Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past on 4 October 2024 - followed by my reaction further to what I said with Martin Neil and Jonathan Engler.
Dr. Gupta is a professor at Oxford University and accomplished scholar who gained prominence in 2020 as signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration. Until watching this panel discussion, I was unaware of her current views on certain COVID-related questions and how those complement & contradict the views of other well-known experts who ‘dissent’ from the government narrative.
I present Gupta’s perspective as a Q&A. All ‘answers’ are hers and, in some cases, are excerpted from different points in the session. The ‘questions’ are borrowed or induced from the answers she was giving to similar or related questions (explicit or implicit) and responses to other panelists.
Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?
[20:38] ‘…to my mind the discussion about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 rotates around two equally implausible scenarios: Either that the virus was manufactured in a laboratory in Wuhan or that it jumped out of a dish of Pangolin chop suey somewhere nearby. What is far more likely is that the virus had already been circulating over a period of several months in China and only came to light in Wuhan. Just because we found it in Wuhan doesn't mean it came from Wuhan…[it] only came to light in Wuhan.’
[21:16] ‘When it was at sufficient prevalence for an intelligent physician to identify an atypical cluster of hospital cases and raise the alarm, I cannot blame my colleagues for rushing to stem potentially dangerous speculations about a leak that might seem plausible from the coincidence the virus was first detected in such close proximity to the Wuhan lab.’
[28:30] ‘SARS-CoV-2, I think, is very likely to have emerged from some bat or something somewhere, somewhere else in China. Been spreading through humans, got to Wuhan, was detected there. That to me is the most parsimonious explanation for where SARS-CoV-2 came from.’
[59:50] ‘I think the idea that it's spilled over from raccoon dogs playing mahjong in the market is bonkers.’
Why has no animal reservoir or intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2 been found?
[26:43] With regard to find — not being able to find it in animals, the fact is that it clearly, it's a specific evolutionary event, which may or may not make it transmissible in animals. And in the case of SARS-CoV-1, SARS-1, it happened to be something that was around in other animals. That doesn't have to be the case with SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 may easily have just been spreading, may only be something -- it seems to be in fact clearly the -- but is specifically adapted to humans, so it could have been spreading through humans in China. How do we know? What do we know? We have no evidence that it wasn't doing that. So I think it's more likely that it was…MERS is actually an endemic infection in many parts of the world. You go, you bleed the Turana tribe, 50% of them have antibodies to MERS. These are different types of viruses. They have different epidemiologies.’
Does Gain-of-Function research pose a threat?
[22:16] ‘…the hysteria around gain of function is misplaced. Those who are clamoring for it to be restricted would do well to recognize that many of the proponents of lockdown were also firmly in favor of stopping gain of function research in pre-pandemic times. My own assessment of gain of function - which I believe is shared by many other biologists - is that it's an unfortunately-named Standard Process for determining the properties of viruses and carries a very low risk for — to any of (I can substantiate on that…). In fact, gain of function experiments are far more likely to lead to medical interventions that improve the lives of people than to spawn a new pandemic. Nature is far more adept at that.’
[1:05:22] ‘I think the threat [of Gain of Function] is hugely overblown.’
So scientists can’t adulterate or ‘create’ a virus in a lab that is able to escape or be leaked and do any real damage?
[48:44] ‘…in terms of making something - a virus a viable virus - at least in my experience, because even though I'm a theoretical epidemiologist, I actually do have a lab. It's really very difficult to make a viable virus in a lab. It's extremely difficult. It's difficult to make anything that even vaguely infects a cell. It's really, really tricky.
[1:05:28] ‘I think that it's very difficult to make a crazy virus in the lab. I think most of these insertions of furin cleavage sites or polybasic cleavage sites are happening in nature all the time anyway, and what we have to remember is the competition is, what's driving this, an immune selection is the main driver, not whether or not this thing exists at all.’
If Gain-of-Function research (or other scientific experiments) doesn’t/can’t produce viruses that can transmit or survive in the real world, then why conduct the research at all? Isn’t the goal to make a pathogen more virulent, transmissible, etc.?
[48:01] ‘Because you want to learn. When—why do we do experiments at all? We create artificial systems. We mutate things….Obviously, the reason why people want to do it is because it's useful to know. It's very important to know what the virulence factors are. It's very important to characterize them.’
[46:19] ‘…what you have to remember, or what we must remember, is in the evolutionary ecology of these systems, these - what what's limiting the spread of a virus is not just whether it comes into existence or not. That's just an event. Is it. And these viruses they have high mutation rates, they recombine all the time. I can assure you that they are interrogating a lot of the possibilities for what they could possibly be. Then why don't we get these, an explosion of new viruses all the time? It's because viruses, new viruses have to compete against the existing viruses. They have to compete on a landscape of immunity that exists towards related viruses. And when you put all of that together, you realize that a virus that you've made by passaging it through a million ferrets until it can actually go from one ferret to another is not necessarily – is actually very unlikely to make it in the wild. It's like you can squeeze it into a box. You can keep selecting and selecting and selecting until it does something that it doesn't normally do in the wild. But actually that virus is not going to compete very successfully in the wild.’
[49:50] ‘Um, clearly one performs experiments with - I mean, you have to you have to trust the scientists. They do perform experiments in order to understand a system so that we can get the measure of it and make design interventions that will stop, you know, disease –’
[1:05:57] ‘I have been arguing for gain of function studies against people like Marc Lipsitch and, indeed, Tony Fauci was very nervous about gain of function. I think there's a certain safetyism involved here, is that ‘Oh, gain of function. Oh dear what's that going to do?” So I have been arguing for gain of so-called gain of function studies, which I think are just standard ways of exploring the properties of viruses, which often lead to I think very useful insights, some of which I'm currently exploiting in making a universal flu vaccine…I think the threat is overblown.’
Tony Fauci was questioning Gain-of-Function research?
Dialogue between Gupta, Bryce Nickels, and Laura Kahn. [1:06:34]
Nickles: Can I ask you a question? Clarification: When was Tony Fauci questioning gain--? Is this before 2011?
Gupta: Mark and Tony were talking in, I guess yeah, before - around 2011. Mark…was really worried about Ron Fouchier’s experiments.
Nickles: But not Fauci.
Gupta: Yeah.They were all talking to each other and saying -- oh I remember Tony Fauci being pretty worried about it and I --
Kahn: But he published an op-ed in the Washington Post defending it.
Gupta: Yeah then, maybe he changed his mind. He's not averse to changing his mind. as we know. So, but there was certainly a time when he -- Mark Lipsich remains very concerned. I said, I made the same arguments to him. I said, “I don't think you can make something in the lab that's going to be able to compete successfully with what's out in the world.” Anyway, so I think the threat is overblown.
So you don’t think Gain of Function can create pandemic potential pathogens?
[1:07:40] ‘…even if [that possibility] does exist, if there is the possibility - and indeed there always will be a small possibility that at least that it - you could make this - can we actually prevent pandemics from arising by stopping gain of function studies? I mean, I think I'm worried in this whole sort of narrative about “it was a lab leak” and we should just stop gain of function studies…I'm not saying that you're suggesting that if we stopped gain of function studies, we won't have pandemics anymore. But there is a sense that of control. Again, I think of us being able to control a process, which I think we really can't. I think pandemics are going to occur over and over again and stopping gain of function [doesn’t stop pandemics].’
And you don’t think various people’s behavior is suggestive of a lab-leak cover-up?
[1:18:46] ‘I think what happened is that they started off thinking, “Oh we mustn't let this become a huge political thing,” and then once they did that using their standard means of doing that, then they closed ranks after that. But that does not mean it's -- that does not mean it was a lab leak that got covered up.’
[1:30:17] ‘…remember have we've been railing against certainty. So can we please -- may I please just entreat you to not think of the Lab Leak, to not use that same language to talk about the Lab Leak? I'm sure it is something that should be discussed. And, you know, there are lots of good arguments for why that should be the case -- and you know some of the evidence you found, Alex [Washburne], you know, those should be out there and discussed in a civilized manner. But to talk about the lab leak as if it was certain, as I see many of you doing here, I actually find quite problematic, I'm afraid to say.’
Do you support more regulation of/restrictions on Gain of Function research?
[1:22:41] ‘We already have a lot of regulation, which is - it has to be proportionate. You know, it's just like the lockdown situation. “What are we going to do, are we going to do —?” You know, even if lockdowns or NPIs did stop the spread of the virus to…under what circumstances would you use them? So, we already have a lot of regulation. You don't do any work outside of, you know, you have a lot of safety rules in place already. We have pathogens that really never harm us. We have to do the work in Category 3. Obviously, we err on the side of caution with most things.
[1:23:31] I think that if you, if the threat is overblown - which I think it is hugely is - in this particular case, and then you bring in too much regulation, you're basically doing the same thing as we did with lockdowns. You're creating a situation that is unnecessary and will cause damage, will impede research, and will take away – will shift the focus on how to stop a pandemic from happening in the first place, rather than how to mitigate its effects. So I just think the threat is overblown.
[1:24:02] What we can do about -- we're already regulating this stuff to the extent that it needs. Of course all this work should be done at a high biosecurity level. Of course it should be. But beyond that, to fret about it and say to stop it all together, I think is indulging in the same kind of safetyism that lockdowns and NPIs.’
Are pandemics something we should be afraid of? Are pandemics preventable?
[1:31:07] ‘I think we fear the idea of a pandemic too much. I don't think there are many ways in which we can stop it from happening. I think there are huge opportunity costs to it all the money that's been spent on trying to hunt, track down, hunt down every single virus and try and make sure it doesn't it's not going to kill us, that money could have been spent on strengthening Health Care Systems in the global South. It could have been spent on strengthening Health Care Systems everywhere. Let's get these problems into perspective. We have a lot of other issues to worry about.’
Reaction
As suggested in this article with Martin Neil & Jonathan Engler, I find Dr. Gupta’s positions are better-reasoned and more realistic than those who advance hypotheses involving releases, accidents, or spread events that began in and transmitted from Wuhan.
Gupta is correct that Gain of Function is standard practice in virology and hasn’t produced pathogens which have escaped from a lab to wreak havoc. I concur with her assertion that fears about GoF being able to produce powerful pathogens viable under real-world conditions are ‘hugely overblown.’ For all of their hubristic tinkering, scientists cannot outdo nature - which (in my view) is to say they cannot compete with God or violate His laws for a designed world, even in its fallen state.
Those who insist GoF poses a threat to humanity on the basis of adulterated invisible things seeping out of buildings or hitching a ride on careless lab workers have watched one too many sci-fi disaster films and need to right-size their expectations of humanity’s capabilities and technological advancements.
Being involved in universal flu vaccine research, Gupta is well aware that the primary purpose of GoF experiments is vaccine development for dangerous or “pandemic” strains of influenza, coronaviruses, etc. Opponents might argue her attitude toward GoF is unduly influenced by her professional modus operandi, i.e., she stands to lose grants, credibility, or future renown if GoF is banned or greatly restricted. Even if that’s the case, it still leaves those who purport GoF can unleash destruction via ‘virus jailbreak’ in the position of having to explain when and how that has happened.
There are better reasons Gupta shouldn’t be defending such research:
nature doesn’t allow viral pandemics - hence, GoF is misdirected;
seasonal injections are inefficacious & immunosuppressive - ergo, it’s highly unlikely those developed for worst-case scenarios would work;
universal/One Shot goals are the epidemiological equivalent of the Tower of Babel -- which renders the pursuit highly susceptible to being leveraged by those with bio-surveillance, digital ID, and depopulation ambitions;
the implicit endgame of GoF is to compel or require some group of people to take the ‘vaccine’ resulting from the experiments - therefore, it’s an ethically questionable enterprise.
Regarding the origins of SARS-CoV-2, I agree with Gupta that single-point spread from a lab leak or wet-market is preposterous. Whereas she is fairly certain about SARS-CoV-2’s novelty, transmission mechanism, and causal relationship to unremarkable illness, I see “it” as already “out there” or in humans long before December 2019, claims about transmissibility entirely unsubstantiated, and zero studies demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 is responsible for a new cause of death the WHO decided to call COVID-19.
I’m also not persuaded that whatever the thing sequenced & tested for was a unique entity or arose from (as she said) “some bat or something”. How Gupta can recognize the idea the virus came from “raccoon dogs playing mahjong in the market” is “bonkers” while embracing the notion of humans contracting a coronavirus from flying mammals that dwell in caves, sequestered from villages and cities, is beyond me.
The Bat Theory buys more time for “spreading” to occur, so Gupta’s view is perhaps more realistic those who point directly to something starting in Wuhan. However, Gupta believes in a nebulous “evolutionary event” having taking place “somewhere in China” and that the virus could’ve been identified anywhere in that country but “happened to emerge” in Wuhan.
Laying aside my doubts about bats passing coronaviruses to humans - and my concerns about the cluster of cases & the doctor who *discovered* them - I fail to see how someone of Gupta’s caliber can simply accept the purported chronology and speed of events on faith. She says there is no evidence the virus hadn’t been spreading among humans in China for some time, seemingly unaware that a spreading virus which adds risk of death to vulnerable groups would need to manifest itself in time-series data of some kind — including all-cause mortality - but did no such thing until given permission to do so.
Gupta’s timeline puts an *evolutionary event* in late summer 2019, at earliest. In March 2020, she and the Oxford Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group estimated that 50% of the United Kingdom had already been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and placed ‘arrival’ in the country at January or December.1 The Financial Times interpreted the percentage accordingly:
“The Oxford results would mean the country had already acquired substantial herd immunity through the unrecognised spread of Covid-19 over more than two months. If the findings are confirmed by testing, then the current restrictions could be removed much sooner than ministers have indicated.”
What was/is Sunetra Gupta’s explanation for high seroprevalence of a deadly virus leaving deaths London undisturbed until UK officials issued shutdown orders and deployed mass testing?2
I don’t know, but the Oxford estimate matches antibody testing results in New York City in late March/early April 2020.3 I would love to hear Gupta’s current hypothesis on what happened in NYC - including her reactions to some or all of the serious problems with the city’s spring 2020 death spike - and to know whether she has ever spoken to the 50% estimate for the UK as having been too high.4
Finally, on a lighter note, the best moment in the session was when Sunetra Gupta informed everyone that none other than Tony Fauci was worried about Gain of Function experiments at one point - and she attempted to assuage his (and Marc Lipsitch’s) fears about such endeavors. I recommend listening to her announce this fact - and her fellow panelists react to it - beginning at 1:05:55 in the video below.
Take from the exchange what you will. For me, it’s illustrative of how utterly farcical the entire COVID event really was.
UPDATE: 12/1/24 - I’ve also written a summary & commentary about what Gupta said as a panelist in “Pandemic Policy: A Global Perspective” session at the Stanford symposium.
Not only was the weekly death level in London unremarkable in January thru mid-March 2020, but also it appears to have been below normal before skyrocketing almost 200% (base to peak) in a few weeks. As Denis Rancourt and others have observed for years now, there is no sign of excess mortality anywhere until after governing authorities in a country responded to the WHO’s decrees about a spreading virus and/or pandemic.
See city data in New York - It Was Widespread Well Before Anyone Noticed and (more directly) viral genomic sequencing and antibody studies that concluded SARS-CoV-2 was widely-prevalent/detectable in early February 2020 or sooner.
In a May 2020 interview, Gupta’s explanation for NYC’s death rate was that the city has “pockets of vulnerable people” concentrated in a way that allowed the virus to “rip through those pockets in a way that it wouldn’t if the vulnerable people were more scattered within the general population.”
Injecting a GOF pathogen into humans would likely result in nothing happening, if the history of challenge trials has any say. Even if they did mange to make a subject sick, it is still a giant leap from that to an entity capable of causing a worldwide pandemic. The only pandemic has been one of scientific hubris.
I agree with Gupta about the opportunity cost and how we should spend the money on strengthening the healthcare infrastructure because if there is a pandemic there is very little we can do about it. I think it is hubris to believe that scientists can predict what nature can do before it happens. I think you missed Simons point also when he says how do we know what pathogens have pandemic potential because we can't inject them into humans and test them. It is a very valid and key point to the whole discussion.