Talk:Origin of SARS-CoV-2/Archive 4

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Undisclosed Wuhan lab workers sickened in Nov 2019?

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed

To avoid duplicate discussions, now that this is centralised at RSN
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/wuhan-lab-staff-sought-hospital-care-before-covid-19-outbreak-disclosed-wsj-2021-05-23/ 205.175.106.86 (talk) 23:18, 23 May 2021 (UTC) Recent News (05/23/2021) re possible Covid virus lab leak reported in The Wall Street Journal - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References See here for some concerns about this. Here might be a better place to mention it, but given that the source says that "A State Department fact sheet released near the end of the Trump administration had said "the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses."", the best we could add, if it was on-topic, would be "Some researchers at the WIV sought hospital treatment for an illness in late 2019." - putting it in, however, would create a false impression that this is directly related (that the illness is COVID), which isn't quite exact, and would also be a bit NOTNEWSish (we're better off waiting for some time to see if these rumours are more than just rumours; there are some doubts about the strength of the report: "The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed a range of views about the strength of the report's supporting evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed "further investigation and additional corroboration.""). After all, there's WP:NORUSH. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Give it a rest, guys. If you don't trust the WHO report because of the possibility of Chinese interference, you sure as heck shouldn't trust a "US Intelligence report" for the same risk of interference. Unless and until there's a source indicating it was actually COVID, it shouldn't go here. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Looking at the recent publications, one should realize that zoonotic diseases (such as that one) can be studied in labs and be easily leaked from labs. But unfortunately, there are no real facts/data, "negative" or "positive". And this is for a very good reason: as was noted by many [1], "One of the challenges in developing any certainty is access to the lab itself. China delayed access to international investigators for months after the initial outbreak, virtually guaranteeing that the lab had been deep-cleaned before any forensic analysis could be done, and investigators were also not allowed to view original data logs that scientists say would be critical to understanding the virus' origins. One critical avenue to finding an answer would be to run genetic sequencing on the original samples that staff at the Wuhan lab were working on. But "the Chinese are never going to allow that," said one person familiar with the underlying intelligence. And that is fact. Can someone reasonably view this almost as a self-admission of guilt? Yes, sure. My very best wishes (talk) 14:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC) FWIW - more recently - Dr. Fauci now "not convinced" the Covid virus occurred naturally? - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Yes, and? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:30, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References @Bakkster Man: (and others) - Thank you for your comment - seems to add weight (professional/academic/insider-level) that the "lab leak orgin" is not "ruled out" (or possibly even "unlikely"), and continues to be a serious concern among those possibly aware of the best relevant information(s) at the moment - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Drbogdan, nobody's said it's been "ruled out" yet, and as I've explained to you before saying "I'm not convinced it was natural" does not imply "not unlikely" as you try and say it does here. Dr. Fauci was never convinced it occurred naturally - and none of us are - because to convince scientists takes proof and lots of evidence/data - which has already been said is going to take years for COVID-19. That doesn't change the fact that all available evidence strongly suggests zoonotic origin, and if we had to pick (which scientists don't like to do regardless) the zoonotic origin is still the most likely. This isn't to mention that the question was leading Fauci to respond that way in the first place - Fauci has never to my knowledge said he was "confident" that it developed naturally - it's the same as saying "are you still beating your wife" - either way you answer, you give credence to the idea that you ever beat your wife. All in all a poor interview that can't overrule his other comments on the issue just based on a loaded question. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:17, 24 May 2021 (UTC) @Berchanhimez: Thanks for your comments - and clarifications (well stated imo) - they're *greatly* appreciated - yes - *entirely* agree - no problem whatsoever - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC) @Drbogdan: First, please reread the article before asking it be rewritten, because it absolutely does not "rule out" the possibility. Failure to do so is disrespectful to the level of care others have taken to improve the article. While articles can always improve and mistakes can be made, such an egregious oversight of content clearly already in the article (with stronger sourcing) is completely unproductive. See also, WP:READFIRST, WP:STEWARDSHIP. Second, the source information discussed in this section (the WSJ published intel report) is neither "professional" nor "academic" in nature. Third, you're advocating that we use narrow sources in order to WP:SYNTH a WP:PROFRINGE argument, which is completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Fourth, please be more clear when you share a link how you intend it to improve the article, as this is WP:NOTAFORUM. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Seems relevant - re current views of Scott Gottlieb - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References Key word circumstantial. If you really want to prove something you can find circumstantial evidence for almost anything - heck, I can find circumstantial evidence that the moon is made of cheese if I wanted to. News reports are not going to ever be relevant for this sort of topic - the origin of the virus is at this point biomedical information that requires MEDRS, and it won't become "historical" information for another 5+ years at least - thus unless there's new MEDRS compliant sources there's no sense accumulating sensationalist news. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Thought for other editors, when does this pattern of editing become WP:PROFRINGE and WP:IDHT that requires warning/sanction? I feel like we're close to that line, if we haven't crossed it already. Particularly given this is immediately after a request to be more clear with 'look at this' type comments. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Just added some more detail to the Trump admin section. I think it's irresponsible to have that quote from Asher without the context added to it by the WSJ piece. Asher says "you don't normally go to the hospital with influenza" but the WSJ article contextualizes that quote with "It isn’t unusual for people in China to go straight to the hospital when they fall sick, either because they get better care there or lack access to a general practitioner."--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:44, 25 May 2021 (UTC) FWIW - not promoting any particulular viewpoint - and, yes, I get the point - but a possible relevant timeline was recently published (WaPo; 05/25/2021) that may (or may not) be worthy in helping to improve the article - none of the timeline information may be new - nor WP:MEDRS level - but nevertheless may be worthy in helping to clarify (and/or at least to better support) relevant timeline notions in the main article I would think - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC) References

Now at reliable sources noticeboard

• See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Lab Leak Again. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WikiProject COVID-19

Please join this broad discussion on how we discuss and explain COVID origins. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

You should include scientific articles from peer-reviewed journals instead of relying on popular media. 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 12:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Anthony Fauci states he is "not convinced" about natural origins hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2

On or about May 25, 2021, in a video interview, the following exchange occurred between Dr. Anthony Fauci and a reporter.

Reporter: There's a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still. Are you still confident that it developed naturally?

Dr. Fauci: No . . . No, I am not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out, to the best of our ability, exactly what happened.

This interview has also been played back and referenced on CNN.

As such, I would suggest a brief update to the Wikipedia article, under the section "United States government", to reflect this apparent position change from the influential Director of the NIAID and chief medical advisor to the US President. 2600:1700:FE20:2390:9008:E887:CAA4:B19B (talk) 04:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that Fauci's statement that he favors further investigation into the origins of the virus needs to be mentioned - there are many, many US officials making statements on this topic, and we can describe any investigations that do actually occur. -Darouet (talk) 05:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And, more importantly, it mirrors the WHO report's conclusion: that it can't be ruled out yet. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:50, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And Most importantly, I don't think Fauci ever actually said he was "100% convinced" of the natural origin. That would be really bad science based on such limited data. It's just the most likely scenario with the limited data we have.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Fauci has clarified his comments: [2]. He is not 100% sure of a natural origin, but he still believes it is "highly likely", just as he has said before. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:05, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the tone of all the articles related to COVID origins need to be reevaluated based on the changing politics around the issue. Serious questions have emerged related to the natural emergence theory. See articles like this one at The Hill.[3] 2601:844:4000:F910:A91A:960F:5B05:A643 (talk) 14:49, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The tone of our articles already did change, after the WHO-China report was published the possibility (albeit still unlikely) of a lab origin was added to multiple articles. But as even The Hill said in the article you linked: "Again, most scientists still believe the virus occurred naturally." As such, we continue to follow WP:FRINGELEVEL: Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

To change the tone of articles about scientific subjects because of political circumstances is a completely crazy idea. Stalin and Trump would have liked it, but those people are not role models for Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the initial coverage by the "reliable sources" was heavily politicized, to the point of suppressing evidence for a lab origin for the virus. If you want scientific articles, you should stick to scientific journals as sources (which I gather are considered too primary for Wikipedia?). Now that the politics has cooled off, the popular media is wondering why they were so quick to condemn the possibility of a leak as "conspiracy theory." 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 12:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks as if you can see only a less reliable part of all sources, namely the non-scientific ones.

Not all scientific articles are primary. Wikipedia's coverage of the subject is, and should be, based on secondary scientific sources. If they are "biased", we cannot do anything about it since they are the least biased thing we can get in principle. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be a confusion around what makes a source good WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Secondary sources are more reliable than primary, peer-reviewed sources have more weight than those without review, etc. I expect this regards the Science letter, which as an unreviewed opinion is citable for this minority opinion is notable for inclusion, not this explanation is more likely. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's a timeline published by Washington Post of what's been going on outside of the popular press on this topic. [4] 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

A timeline we already know to be flawed. XOR'easter (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Facebook Ends Ban on Posts Asserting Covid-19 Was Man-Made

[5] even the gatekeeping overlords are walking back on this subject. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 00:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC) + [6]

• Good thing we are not Facebook, because mainstream scientists still consider that the "man-made theory" (unlike the "extremely unlikely" lab leak) is ruled out (WHO report; Immunity. 2020 May 19; 52(5): 734–736.; Infect Genet Evol. 2021 Mar 18 : 104812.). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Here's a good read on how social media groupthink played a role in stifling inquiry into the lab-leak theory. They note that "many leading scientists believe [COVID-19] may well have leaked from a lab", and "There has never been a clear expert consensus on the virus’s origins. There were a handful of scientists with unusually robust social-media profiles expressing strong views". Stonkaments (talk) 01:18, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Scientists publishing in peer-reviewed papers have overwhelmingly argued for a natural origin. We favour WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:MEDRS over news reports or social media, for all subjects but especially for heavily complex topics such as the origins of a virus. As for group-think, that might just as well be the case for proponents of the lab leak. Also excellent piece here about politics and how the citing of "intelligence reports" to support a claim dismissed by experts is not unprecedented... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that we should try to rely as much as possible on peer-reviewed research, but news reports often cover aspects of the topic that the peer-reviewed research doesn't address. Also, I'm genuinely curious, what is the WP policy for how to handle research if there are credible concerns of bias in the research due to conflicts of interest? For example, Peter Daszak being a member of the WHO investigation team despite having a close relationship (including providing funding) to the Wuhan lab,[7][8] and virologists more generally having a vested interest in maintaining trust, respectability, and funding for gain-of-function research.[9][10] Stonkaments (talk) 01:43, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  That sounds like the classical conspiracy theory ("the experts and their vested interests don't want you to know about THIS!!!"). We're not here to right great wrongs, and Wikipedia is academically conservative intentionally, because it's a work of reference, not a private investigator or a research paper. If we'd been around in Galileo's time, we would have had to report as the mainstream view that the Sun goes round the Earth, because that is what the reliable sources would have told us. We care for verifiability, not truth. Of course, consensus (academic and on Wikipedia) can change. But as an encyclopedia, we're interested in following that consensus once it's well established in the sources, not leading it. As must have been said multiple times, the burden of proof is on you to show us there are academic sources which contradict the established consensus. Looking on Pubmed, there are plenty of secondary review papers about the origins of Covid, very few of which seem to seriously mention the lab leak (note that this is not an exhaustive search, just an example - conducting a keyword search is much more an involved effort than making one or two queries). There's already this partially annotated bibliography which you're surely aware of; and I'm also personally working on making a full survey of all published papers which match keywords and which seem to be about the relevant topic to see if there is any material that can be found. Until such time that we have solid contradictory sources, we're bound by the existing ones. Also note that it took a whole 14 years before the zoonotic origin of SARS was proven with direct evidence. There's really WP:NORUSH here, and I'd much rather trust the scientists who have spent their whole careers studying this than politicians and pundits who are quick to jump on sensational headlines. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  To clarify: we're not a monolithic, static work either. Significant developments can be covered. As far as I can see, the only significant development has been the amount of political noise over it (WaPo; Guardian; the other Guardian article linked previously; plenty of other sources) and the reaction to the WHO report (already in the article). If you can help find a way to cover this more thoroughly, that's helpful. But we must of course remain vigilant and assess sources for what they are. Newspapers covering politics is entirely within their usual scope and expertise. Newspapers making big, bold claims about science is usually prone to MEDPOP and other issues of distortion and lack of thoroughness/expertise from the writer which are much less prevalent in academic literature. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:13, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I don't find the "conspiracy theory" dismissal very convincing. These are clear, well-documented conflicts of interest, and many reliable sources argue that the lab-leak theory was dismissed prematurely for political reasons. But we must of course remain vigilant and assess sources for what they are. I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. I'd also like to encourage applying WP:NORUSH evenly to both sides―we shouldn't rush to delineate a "scientific consensus" when that hasn't been decided yet. Stonkaments (talk) 02:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  If fellow scientists had reasonable concerns about these "conflicts of interest" (I note that collaboration between experts in the academic world is a common thing), it's unlikely all of these papers (from scientists all over the globe, published in multiple credible journals) would have gotten through peer-review without any mention being made of it. The claim to the contrary, that scientists are not reporting on this because they "have a vested interest in maintaining trust, respectability, and funding for gain-of-function research", is just the classic conspiracy theory. Re. NORUSH - note that nowhere is it written "this is a settled issue". Unlike with SARS, there is no definitive evidence (yet). So we write what sources say, that "The current scientific consensus is that the virus is most likely of zoonotic origin, from bats or another closely-related mammal."; that "Most virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote," that "the March 2021 WHO report on the joint WHO-China study stated that such an explanation is "extremely unlikely"", and that "Definitively proving or disproving a "lab" related origin of the virus is a difficult and lengthy process, and long investigations are required to provide a definitive proof or disproof of any theory of the virus's origin.[27][47]". Doesn't sound like "this has been definitively ruled out" to me, unless I'm missing something. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:10, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I still don't think it's a crazy conspiracy theory to suggest that scientists are influenced by political pressures; see this article, which says: "scientists...in general were cautious about speaking out. There were 'very intense, very subtle pressures' on them not to push on issues of laboratory biohazards." So the matter of scientists facing political pressures has been mentioned in reliable sources, and I think it could be DUE to include if more reliable sources come out highlighting specific conflicts of interest.
  Recent edits to the article introduced claims such as: "The scientific consensus is that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting."—that is the type of definitive statement I am cautioning against at this time. I agree that the quotes you highlighted are more carefully constructed and appropriately attributed, with the possible exception of Most virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote, which strikes me as an overstep, at least based on the two sources cited for that claim (neither of which makes any claim about what "most virologists" think, nor supports the possibility being "very remote", from what I can see). Stonkaments (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Intelligence reports and statements from politicians are even more obvious examples of political pressure so that doesn't help us much. There are plenty of sources which describe the current position as a "scientific consensus" or in words very similar to the above quoted ("Meanwhile, outside of US intelligence circles, the broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event."; "Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus came from nature, various scientific and pseudo-scientific claims have continued to fan the flames of a conspiracy theory that the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab."; "The conspiracy narrative that COVID-19 was created in a Wuhan laboratory is an unsubstantiated narrative that challenges the current scientific consensus on the virus’s origins."). FWIW, that wording has been there nearly unaltered for months and nobody has found a source which challenges this summary.

  It doesn't help that many scientific papers don't mention the lab leak at all (Exp Mol Med 53, 537–547 (2021) doesn't, neither does Acta Trop 214, 105778 (2021 Feb); or Int Rev Immunol 40(1-2), 5-53 (2021).) This only highlights, since many scientists take the zoonotic origin for fact, that the lab leak is very fringe. The few sources that do mention a possible laboratory sequence of events say it's not plausible (Andersen et al., Nat Med); that while it might be hard to disprove, there is no evidence to support it ([11][12]); or that it is a conspiracy theory pure and simple ([13]).

  That puts us at a significant crossroads, because the lab leak has attracted significant attention, and has been promoted very aggressively by some: "Nonetheless, some aggressive proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis interpreted the letter as supporting their ideas. For instance, a neuroscientist belonging to a group that claims to independently investigate COVID-19 [note: I assume this is the DRASTIC group, although I can't be bothered to verify this, mostly because the tweet is likely deleted by now and because I have no interest in Twitter trolls, some of whom came to harass me personally on my talk page] tweeted that the letter is a diluted version of ideas his group posted online last year. That same week on Twitter, the neuroscientist also lashed out at Rasmussen, who has tried to explain studies suggesting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the public. He called her fat, and then posted a derogatory comment about her sexual anatomy. Rasmussen says, “This debate has moved so far from the evidence that I don’t know if we can dial it back.”" [14]. To the extent that what SCHOLARSHIP is saying, and what MEDPOP is saying, are nearly on opposite ends... ("very likely zoonotic origin, lab leak possible but extremely unlikely" vs "lab leak 'credible' and 'mainstream'")

  All in the midst of a very divisive political global situation (which should put any statement coming from political mouths into even more suspicion). Exceptional claims (that would be enough to throw these "best sources" out) require exceptional evidence. As has been said, collaboration between scientists is common, and calling it a "conflict of interest" and assuming that scientists are dishonest and not bound by standards of academic integrity strikes me as trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater, in support of a fringe position. In any case, it's not a call we as editors are allowed to make. In matters of science, we're still bound by the top sources, and if they don't find fault with the works of their colleagues, it's certainly well beyond our remit to dismiss them on those grounds. The current text isn't inaccurate, and we can seek to improve it's wording if necessary to make ideas clearer. Until and if there is a documentable and apparent shift in what the top sources say (so, as said, when we can follow these sources instead of leading them), however, we can't treat the lab leak as anything but a minority, FRINGE position which cannot be compared to the mainstream position on a one on one basis without lending it undue weight; although it can be mentioned when appropriate to the topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:38, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

• @205.175.106.86: This might be more applicable if we prohibited discussion of the hypothesis. We clearly don't. The current dispute is not whether to prohibit mentioning it, it's what level of weight is WP:DUE/WP:UNDUE.

@Stonkaments: Also, I'm genuinely curious, what is the WP policy for how to handle research if there are credible concerns of bias in the research due to conflicts of interest? This should be handled by WP:SCHOLARSHIP and favoring of secondary sources. If secondary sources don't find a COI issue with a primary study, we shouldn't second-guess their conclusions. To do so could be trying to WP:RGW, and we don't do that. That said, we summarize consensus. So long as we're clear in distinguishing (for instance) that the scientific community broadly agrees with a set of conclusions, while there's significant social/political criticisms of those conclusions, then we can address these concerns and still correctly assert that any COI concerns are a minority among scientists. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Just to add, if there are well-documented reasons to doubt an area of research then a source from it will get extra scrutiny. Hence Wikipedia generally does not use any Chinese-originated research for Traditional Chinese medicine, and Russian neuroscience sources have a poor reputation, for example. Any Chinese-originated research on COVID-19, particularly if it makes exceptional claims, can probably be discounted because of known problems of state interference. Alexbrn (talk) 13:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. How are we doing on handling the minor detail that the WHO covid report is not based on raw data? [15] Adoring nanny (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we can do better (I'd suggest this is the second most notable element of Tedros' comments behind what we have quoted currently, far more notable than the passage that keeps coming up about the lab itself since it applies to all four hypotheses). But let's not pretend that a talk page section that started with even the gatekeeping overlords are walking back on this subject (emphasis added) was an earnest attempt to improve the article (let alone this particular phrase). Bakkster Man (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

the WHO covid report is not based on raw data - it is certainly based on raw data, since the report relied upon

• "studies from surveillance of morbidity due to respiratory diseases in and around Wuhan in late 2019"
• "national sentinel surveillance data; laboratory confirmations of disease; reports of retail pharmacy purchases for antipyretics, cold and cough medications"
• "a convenience subset of stored samples of more than 4500 research project samples from the second half of 2019 stored at various hospitals in Wuhan, the rest of Hubei Province and other provinces"
• "surveillance data on all-cause mortality and pneumonia-specific mortality from Wuhan city and the rest of Hubei Province"
• "surveillance data and cases reported to the National Notifiable Disease Reporting System (NNDRS) in China"
• "76,253 records of cases of respiratory conditions in the two months of October and November before the outbreak in late 2019"
• "data collected through the China National Centre for Bioinformation integrated database on all available coronaviruses sequences and their metadata"
• "All sequence data from samples collected in December 2019 and January 2020"
• "data from published studies from different countries suggesting early circulation of SARS-CoV-2"
• "More than 80000 wildlife, livestock and poultry [samples] collected from 31 provinces in China"
• "923 environmental samples in Huanan market"

Do you mean that WHO scientists didn't personally generate new data for the report? I'm highly skeptical of that claim, since in addition to all the data sources mentioned above, the WHO scientists interviewed lab workers, managers and directors at three scientific laboratories in Wuhan. The internationaal scientists quoted in that NYT article flatly reject that claim that they didn't have sufficient access to data [16]. -Darouet (talk) 17:55, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Per the more up to date comments (than either the NYT article or Daszak tweet) from the WHO Director General: The team reports that the first detected case had symptom onset on the 8th of December 2019. But to understand the earliest cases, scientists would benefit from full access to data including biological samples from at least September 2019. In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data. I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing. I added part of this quote to the article to clarify that calls for greater access to data (not necessarily 'no data') came from the WHO, in addition to the other cited comments.[17] Bakkster Man (talk) 19:08, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

"Lab leak" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Lab leak. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 31#Lab leak until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:58, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

links to other articles on lab leak

Biosafety level and List of laboratory biosecurity incidents which includes "2019 Brucellosis China an accident in a laboratory at the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute [zh] caused 65 workers to become infected with brucellosis, as reported by China's state media.[41] A later report from Reuters indicates that a further 6,620 residents of Lanzhou have been infected as of November 2020, and cites the local government as saying that the outbreak was caused by polluted waste gas from a nearby biopharmaceutical factory, which was carried by wind down to the Veterinary Research Institute, where the first cases were first recorded in November 2019.[42]"

seems to be relevant to if a leak from a Chinese lab is likely or not.

It however does not discuss the mechanism i.e. a. bat to person; b. bat to genetically engineered biowarfare to person; c. bat to ACE receptor transgenic mouse to person. AND then person accidentally infected in lab then infects others OR several accidentally infected. These would be conspiracy theories - even if true. c. is implied by the Wuhan Institute of Virology page "The scientific community was also reassured that many Wuhan lab scientists were trained in safety procedures at a BSL-4 lab in Lyon, France.[3] Scientists such as U.S. molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright, who had expressed concern of previous escapes of the SARS virus at Chinese laboratories in Beijing and had been troubled by the pace and scale of China's plans for expansion into BSL–4 laboratories,[3] called the institute a "world-class research institution that does world-class research in virology and immunology" while he noted that the WIV is a world leader in the study of bat coronaviruses.[9]"

Elsewhere the idea of a transgenic mouse working with the ACE 4 receptor is better discussed https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11946046 "What about laboratory theory? When scientists inoculate new genes into viruses in the laboratory to give the viruses new properties, this is called a gain of function study. This is exactly the kind of research that was done at the Wuhan Virus Laboratory and with bat coronaviruses. According to Wade's article, this work was funded by the U.S. EcoHealth Alliance , whose director, Peter Daszak , spoke about his work.(you switch to another service) shortly before the pandemic broke out like this:

“Now, after 6-7 years, we have found over a hundred new SARS-like viruses, they are very close to SARS. Some of them enter the human cells in the laboratory, some of them cause SARS in humanized mouse models and cannot be treated with monoclonal antibodies ... ”

The development of the virus in Wuhan was based on inoculating the coronavirus with various genes for peak proteins and looking at the disease they cause in humanized mouse models. “Humanization” of mice means that they had a human version of the ACE2 receptor, the very receptor to which SARS-CoV-2 attaches when it infects humans. (SARS-CoV-2 actually binds to the human ACE2 receptor much more completely than the bat ACE2 receptor.)

Thus, it does not take much imagination to think about how a Furin cleavage taken from another virus could have been added to a coronavirus in the laboratory, thus a gene whose protein binds to the ACE2 receptor. This would have created a new kind of coronavirus, and then it would have escaped the population."

The links to this information and contextualization seems missing from the articles at present. e.g. EcoHealth Alliance has no information about that 2019 interview with Daszak. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.30.115 (talk) 00:27, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The above is hard to comprehend, since it isn't exactly structured logically, but it appears to be WP:OR (bonus: no reliable source of any kind cited). I fail to see what the suggested changes would be anyway. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:39, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Loss of internet prevented me adding more. There appears also to be evidence of the WIV going to a cave taking a bat coronavirus (which they later published on in nature and is claimed to be the closest wild virus to the covid-19 pandemic causing virus), then testing for antibodies in a nearby village, finding several cases of antibodies in human residents of that village. This suggests the leap is possible from bats to humans, but the virus is easily fought off - it does not adapt well. Once modified (with the ACE receptor better adapted for) it does and did adapt well. Was that modification done by gain of function research in a humanized mouse? / a natural evolution by an intermediate species? a direct leap?

To add this together in certain ways would break wikipedia policy on synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material SO I HAVE NOT DONE THAT. There are several reliable sources cited: the Wikipedia articles themselves - which you can look at and read contain those sources. Also the YLE news source (The Science Editor) is cited which then again cites another source https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ which are the sources of information NOT contained in the articles. For example there is no mention of EcoHealth Alliance who supported the research in the WIV article yet the EcoHealth article says "In April 2020 amid the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, the NIH ordered EcoHealth Alliance to cease spending the remaining $369,819 from its current NIH grant at the request of the Trump administration due to their bat research relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located near the epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2." - surely there should be a link / mention between the 2??

The post here was for editors to link relevant information better across wikipedia instead of swelling it all in this page. SO for example the link in this page's article to "laboratory leak" was pointing to conspiracy theory - yet in the same sentence there already was the words conspiracy theory pointing as a link to conspiracy theory and instead laboratory link - now changed to Laboratory incident should point to an article about laboratory incidents e.g. Biosafety level or List of laboratory biosecurity incidents IMHO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.30.115 (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Still hard to comprehend. Could you please just say in what way you want to change the article? Omit the reasons why you want to do that, omit the reasons why you did not write them at first, omit links you do not want to add to the article, omit free association and general ideas about the subject. All that can come later if needed. If you mix it all together, your cryptic writing style will prevent others from understanding what you actually want to do. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Re. "There are several reliable sources cited" - other Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources; you need to cite the sources directly. The piece by Wade is not a reliable source for scientific claims (the origin of a virus) since it comes from a non-expert, is published in a topic-unrelated journal, and there's no evidence of peer review as it is basically a repost of a self-published piece on medium. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:43, 31 May 2021 (UTC)