Thinking About Lab Leak...

Documenting my current thoughts

Inspired by good dialogue with Ann Bauer on X, I’m departing from my usual focus a bit to document some things I am thinking about the SARS-CoV-2 “lab leak” hypothesis. I confess to not keeping up with the latest news from Lab Leak Land and therefore may be missing robust responses to the observations I’ll make about that point of view. I trust readers will apprise me of important things I’ve overlooked.

The way I see it, the current “dichotomy” insofar as the alleged existence of singular pathogen & *variants* that light-up PCR tests is this:

Naturally-Occurring/Already Out There or “In” Humans Vs. Man-Made/Adulterated

Then there’s the mechanism issue:

Already in Nature (No Leaping), Leapt from Nature (Zoonosis/Zoonotic Transmission from Non-Human Animal to Human) Vs. Came from Lab(s)

Within “came from lab(s),” the options seem to be:

• It accidentally leaked/escaped (e.g., on lab workers)

• It was intentionally released [into the air?] in one or more places.

• It was intentionally deployed via direct mechanism in one or more places (e.g., via flu shot, testing swabs/reagents, oxygen tanks).

As far as I can tell, Lab Leak Enthusiasts have not reasonably explained or defended, let alone proven

• the mechanism(s) by which the thing¹ named SARS-CoV-2 is supposed to have gotten from lab(s) to everywhere else,

• evidence that the thing named SARS-CoV-2 “spreads” or transmits from person to person,²

• a causal relationship between the thing named SARS-CoV-2 and either Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) or Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19),³

• how the thing named SARS-CoV-2 was “around” in 2019/early 2020 without showing itself in mortality data until government officials took actions and deployed mass testing in hospitals,

• how the thing named SARS-CoV-2 created successive mass casualty events in geopolitically strategic locations like Iran, Bergamo (Italy), Madrid, New York City, and London.⁴

• evidence that Gain-of-Function research has ever resulted in - or ever could result in - a virulent and/or transmitting or spreading pathogen.⁵

I would appreciate being directed to any writer or researcher with a Lab Leak orientation who has described what he or she thinks happened - and how - in a manner demonstrating a strong command of biology, timeline, and relevant data. To date, the best distillation of the “COVID origins” landscape that I’ve seen is in Piers Robinson & Kevin Ryan’s recent paper A Plausibility Probe of 9/11 and COVID-19 as ‘Structural Deep Events’ (see section 4, under C).

For what its worth, my current view is this:

• Transmission or spread of SARS-CoV-2 from a point source doesn’t “work” mechanistically, or with the sequence of events which transpired in late 2019 and early 2020, and would require believing many impossible & magical things that have never been empirically observed or demonstrated scientifically or medically.

• The wet market/zoonotic leap hypothesis is equally implausible and alleged evidence of coronaviruses transmitting from bats to humans is based on unwarranted inferences, funding agendas, & wishful thinking.

• Testing & seroprevalence data from New York City (and other places) make abundantly obvious that whatever was being identified via tests was widely prevalent - and doing nothing consequential that required a “response” - before the WHO, et al said there was a public health emergency.⁶

• If there was dispersal of a pathogen, infectious clone, or “signal,” it was not via person to person transmission or spread but via one or more direct method(s).

• If all-cause mortality fraud has occurred, i.e., deaths were higher pre-March 2020 than official data show, it would change the debate entirely and require revision of all hypotheses.

• The Lab Leak vs. Zoonosis/Wet Market debate was staged. Among other purposes, it keeps scientists, other experts, and the public from questioning whether anything was suddenly spreading, whether there was a new cause of death, whether the pandemic declaration was fraudulent, and whether pandemics are even possible.

• Government authorities/agencies and private interests are proliferating & protecting decades of lies about respiratory illness, viral transmission, and the efficacy of seasonal shots & other vaccines.

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Post subject to revisions, updates, & changes of mind.

1. Or things

2. Discussing data from Chinese provinces in a February 2020 interview, Dr. Michael Levitt observed that “cases” [positive tests] inside Hubei peaked at the same time as cases outside of Hubei and said “it’s almost like…it’s almost like there’s been no spreading.” I’m not sure where Dr. Levitt stands in 2024 on the issue of “spread” but it seems he might agree that positive tests (PCR, antibody) aren’t necessarily evidence of spread.

3. Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) was the name China gave a pneumonia allegedly caused by 2019-nCoV; COVID-19 is the WHO’s name for a disease it declared a new cause of death in 2020. (See timeline.) It’s clear from emails between members of the committee that renamed 2019-nCoV that causality was neither the province nor the concern of the virologists involved.

4. …while carefully avoiding the city of Tokyo…and showing up during the testing of cruise ship passengers on a voyage leaving from/returning to a Japanese port (Yokohama, pop. 3.7M).

5. See Virus Origins and Gain (Claim) of Function Research.

6. e.g., Maurano et al, 2020; Reifer et al, 2020; data reported by NYC DOHMH. See also New York: It Was Widespread Well Before Anyone Noticed. | Update: I changed “widespread” to “widely prevalent” to better reflect my skepticism about coronaviruses “spreading” between humans (or humans & animals).