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)

Questions about references 1 and 2, general disinterest of authors

Reference 1: Is the WHO report of Spring 2021. Wasn't this report done by 17 Chinese appointed scientists and 13 others? I don't have anything against folks from China, but are they at all free to speak out as scientists? Wasn't this group denied access to the WIV for all but one part of one day? Didn't China, for example, refuse the USAs 3 suggested representatives, to instead get the only USA person who was funding the WIV? I'm not knowledgeable on WP:Policies, but I would think there *should* be something allowing much more explanation of the circumstances behind this report. I'm not saying there is or is not such a policy, but I'm saying there should be, and maybe WP:Ignore Rules should be applied. I do not have personal confidence in this report based upon the circumstances behind how it was conducted.

Reference 2: Is a Scripts Research News Release/Announcement. Once again I'm not an expert on WP:Policies, but this does not appear to be peer reviewed, and I dont see an author cited (sorry if I missed this). I look at the myriad of WP:Policy-Objections thrown up to the numerous articles and users who are merely saying a lab leak was possible (accidental, not definite lab-leak but a possible lab-leak) and don't understand why the policies applied to this reference seem different. Scripts Research includes Kristian Andersen. But I would submit that emails show Mr. Andersen is not a disinterested party. I do not have personal confidence in this reference. Discussion on issues with this reference should be included.

General Disinterest of Virologists: In the past few weeks there have been a large number of primary source documents (mainly emails) released reflecting on how the "scientific consensus" alleged on Wikipedia was reached. These have been widely discussed in the media. I see what to me are clear attempts to game the system. As but one example, emails show the original author of a document discussing with 2 other "scientists" how they should NOT include their signatures so it will appear they were NOT involved. My point is not about one particular quote in an email, but in general many of the individuals involved in the "scientific concensus" certainly seem to not be acting as disinterested parties. As I've said before I'm not an expert in WP:Policies, but I feel there *should* be much more inclusion of this issue.

Application of "peer reviewed research" to "scientific consensus." There was a recent letter in the journal Science (not peer reviewed) from 18 scientists (including Baric who I give a lot of credit to) asking for further research into this area, and much media coverage of it. I do not understand the objections to considering this letter even though it was not "peer reviewed." These are opinions, not allegations of facts that can be "reviewed." (Journal letters alleging specific scientific facts should be questioned more.) This letter shows that "scientific consensus" is a myth. Consensus is done by considering people's opinions and these 18 people's opinions are clear. To the extent there is a WP:Policy that mandates this letter be ignored when considering if their is "consensus", WP:Policy should be changed.

Number of Policies Cited and Users Blocked I read through this Talk page as a whole and feel that it is much more about citing WP:Policies in an effort to shut down disagreement than improving the encyclopedia. I see the same pattern in other pages about this subject. While I agree with some of these policies, they seem to be used in situations where they are not relevant, or used against one position while being ignored for the opposite position. I also see a large number of blocked users along with talk page opinions reverted and unsupported allegations. As but one example, consider the number of users who are referred to as "obvious" sockpuppets."

Overposting by a few users I count the number of posts by one or two particular people on this page and related pages. I know these people are going to object and object again no matter what. Bat woman Shi could defect with a video of lab worker patient zero accidentally needling themselves and the WP:Policies would start flying. I don't know if there is a policy against overposting (although I've seen this type of claim on this very subject) but perhaps there should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:5C4:4301:217C:79A1:7ADA:52C3:9A7F (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Using curated information from news sources in Investigations into the origin of COVID-19

In this blog post I wrote a proposal of how to curate the information reported by top news outlets on the lab leak hypothesis. Please read and comment. If the RFC on using RS is approved, I will post the selected pieces of information that I believe is realiable and due of inclusion in this entry. Forich (talk) 18:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

At the ending the blog post says "When a news sources qualifies the extent of agreement on the scientific community, it can only be used if a) it cites a stronger source or b) it is attributed to the opinion of a particular scientist that represents that position." It is unclear from the writing whether this is your opinion/recommendation or wp policy. Terjen (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Terjen: That is taken from WP:RS/AC. This is the quote:

A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. Editors should avoid original research especially with regard to making blanket statements based on novel syntheses of disparate material. Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus.

.

As you can see, the rule does not say explicitely that MEDRS are required for Academic Consensus, but in practical terms it does says so, because it first says that "reliable sourcing that directly says..." is required, and at the end it says that "Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature can help clarify academic consensus". The part in which individual opinions can also be included sourced on plain RS, even if non-MEDRS is my own interpretation of the "Otherwise" connector in the quote. Forich (talk) 22:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The statement in the blog post puts additional requirements on news sources as a special subset of reliable sources, but this doesn't follow from WP:RS/AC. Terjen (talk) 23:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

"A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." - unless the Guardian, Nature, NYT, and the like are not reliable sources, then your objection holds no water, per the sources already provided. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me but I am getting lost on what is the disagreement. Suppose we have three scenarios:

1. "According to Systematic Review A, all virologists hold position X"
2. "According to NYT, all virologists hold position X"
3. "According to NYT, virologist B holds position X"

Which of these do you think is a good execution of Wikipolicy and which isn't? Forich (talk) 04:53, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Assuming the word "all" can stand in for other, similar words:

1. This would be the ideal option - scientists expressing themselves on views that are prevailing within their field of expertise. At that point, I would hope that attribution is not required, especially because I would assume that no. 2 would also be met.
2. In the absence of number 1, this would be the second best option, assuming that the journalists have done their job right (if, for example, a piece being used to support this is simply some random quotes from scientists, pieced together, that could pose problems). Again, depending on how many newspapers are reporting this, but if there are many reputable sources which independently repeat the same thing, it can be taken for an uncontroversial statement and not require attribution.
3. This is trickier. If the source is quoting the scientist directly, we can simply say "Virologist B holds position X". This then becomes an issue of whether mentioning the opinion of one scientist is DUE or not; and what the view specifically is (views held by tiny minorities, or views which are otherwise disputed by the relevant academic community, should not be quote-mined like this: we should instead rely on secondary sources). Of course, this analysis is in respect to this article. If, say, we're writing an article about Virologist B, and his views are prominent enough that they get mentioned in the press, it might be easier to mention them there as notable views of that person. With the grain of salt of WP:ARSEHOLES, i.e. everybody has opinions and we shouldn't cite scientists' own statements for opinions well outside their topic of expertise.

In short, 1>2 (but 2>0 if 1 not available), and 3 is a case-by-case analysis. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

A bizarre lack of information regarding the lab leak theory

Given the fact that the origin of the virus has not been determined, it is extremely strange that this article focuses primarily on the theory of natural origin. As of right now there is very little evidence regarding a natural origin, and a growing body of circumstantial evidence pointing to an accidental lab leak. An extremely well researched article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ should be sourced, together with other material, to expand the section of the article regarding the lab leak theory. To do otherwise is to signal a strong political bias towards a narrative which has next to no supporting evidence. Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

my apologies, please replace all uses of the word theory with hypothesis Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article isn't as strong as other sources, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. We have (and cite) higher quality sources to explain the theory. We also have many sources indicating it is a minority opinion (even though the minority has good rational reasons for their perspective). As such, WP:GEVAL applies in how we explain the theory (and how much text we use to do so). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is led by a board of accomplished science and security leaders which informs their editorial staff. The article I linked was written by Nicholas Wade who was a writer and editor for the journals Nature and Science. Surely the article is just as valid as propaganda publications like the China Morning Post, mainstream news organizations like ABC news, CNN, Yahoo News, and speculative science entertainment magazines like Popular Science, all of which are referenced in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Nicholas Wade is known for a dubious book on race and intelligence, and has no relevant expertise in virology. His piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal which has no relation to virology and which is not cited much even in its actual field of expertise, is basically an unedited copy of a self-published piece originally on Medium. We have far better sources, like the WHO report and serious academic journals (Nature Medicine and the like) which describe the lab leak as extremely unlikely and not supported by evidence or prior epidemic outbreaks of coronaviruses (SARS, MERS). So no, Wade is not a credible source and we don't WP:FALSEBALANCE. We describe the lab leak for what it is: a minority viewpoint with little backing in academic sources which has gained political attention. See also this recent piece which seems to put the dots on the i's correctly in highlighting the political nature of this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I will also add this article from Nature, which provides a good summary. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01383-3 Dhawk790 (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The question is what more do you want there to be said than what is already in the article? The article already details that the lab leak is considered a valid, if less likely, hypothesis, which appears to be the consensus. If the circumstantial evidence in the Bulletin report is included then it would be justified to included the other circumstantial evidence about the virus potentially not even having originated in Wuhan. Above you can see a discussion about the potential of including that evidence and you can see that it was rejected based on the same criteria that is currently being used to justify the exclusion of some sources, like the Bulletin. There is an ongoing discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biomedical_information) about whether the criteria for what is allowed to be included should be expanded. Depending on the conclusion of that discussion, we may see more evidence for and against the lab leak hypothesis and for and against other potential origin points for the virus included.

EDIT: It is also worth noting that South China Morning Post is not state media. It is an English language paper published in Hong Kong. It's founding occured during the Qing dynasty. That is a common mistake, I think because it has China in its name. If you review their articles, you will find that they are frequently critical of the mainland government. Dhawk790 (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment: SCMP has been bought by the Alibaba Group. With that and recent political climate in Hong Kong, one can see it has turned more and more into a mainland mouthpiece. Sgnpkd (talk) 20:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the article is missing the following information regarding the lab leak hypothesis:

1) The place of origin. The two closest known relatives of the SARS2 virus were collected from bats living in caves in Yunnan, a province of southern China. If the SARS2 virus had first infected people living around the Yunnan caves, that would strongly support the idea that the virus had spilled over to people naturally. But this isn’t what happened. The pandemic broke out 1,500 kilometers away, in Wuhan. Beta-coronaviruses, the family of bat viruses to which SARS2 belongs, infect the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis, which ranges across southern China. The bats’ range is 50 kilometers, so it’s unlikely that any made it to Wuhan. In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation. If the bat viruses had infected some intermediate host, then you would need a longstanding population of bats in frequent proximity with an intermediate host, which in turn must often cross paths with people. All these exchanges of virus must take place somewhere outside Wuhan, a busy metropolis which so far as is known is not a natural habitat of Rhinolophus bat colonies. The infected person (or animal) carrying this highly transmissible virus must have traveled to Wuhan without infecting anyone else. No one in his or her family got sick. If the person jumped on a train to Wuhan, no fellow passengers fell ill.

2) Natural history and evolution. The coronavirus spike protein, adapted to attack bat cells, needs repeated jumps to another species, most of which fail, before it gains a lucky mutation. In the case of SARS1, researchers have documented the successive changes in its spike protein as the virus evolved step by step into a dangerous pathogen. After it had gotten from bats into civets, there were six further changes in its spike protein before it became a mild pathogen in people. After a further 14 changes, the virus was much better adapted to humans, and with a further four, the the epidemic started. But when you look at SARS2, the virus has changed hardly at all, at least until recently. From its very first appearance, it was well adapted to human cells. Researchers led by Alina Chan of the Broad Institute compared SARS2 with late stage SARS1, which by then was well adapted to human cells, and found that the two viruses were similarly well adapted. “By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV,”. Even those who think lab origin unlikely agree that SARS2 genomes are remarkably uniform. Baric writes that “early strains identified in Wuhan, China, showed limited genetic diversity, which suggests that the virus may have been introduced from a single source.” A single source would of course be compatible with lab escape, less so with evolution. The uniform structure of SARS2 genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature. The hallmark of lab cultures is uniformity.

3) The furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site sits in the middle of the SARS2 spike protein. Of all known SARS-related beta-coronaviruses, only SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site. All the other viruses have their S2 unit cleaved at a different site and by a different mechanism. A string of amino acids like that of the furin cleavage site is much more likely to be acquired all together through a process known as recombination. Recombination is an inadvertent swapping of genomic material that occurs when two viruses happen to invade the same cell, and their progeny are assembled with bits and pieces of RNA belonging to the other. Beta-coronaviruses will only combine with other beta-coronaviruses but can acquire, by recombination, almost any genetic element present in the collective genomic pool. What they cannot acquire is an element the pool does not possess. And no known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, the class to which SARS2 belongs, possesses a furin cleavage site. Bat SARS-related beta-coronaviruses don’t need a furin cleavage site to infect bat cells, so there’s no great likelihood that any in fact possesses one, and indeed none has been found so far. A predecessor of SARS2 could have been circulating in the human population for months or years until at some point it acquired a furin cleavage site from human cells. It would then have been ready to break out as a pandemic. If this is what happened, there should be traces in hospital surveillance records of the people infected by the slowly evolving virus. But none has so far come to light. According to the WHO, the sentinel hospitals in Hubei province, home of Wuhan, routinely monitor influenza-like illnesses and “no evidence to suggest substantial SARSCoV-2 transmission in the months preceding the outbreak in December was observed.” So it’s hard to explain how the SARS2 virus picked up its furin cleavage site naturally, whether by mutation or recombination. That leaves a gain-of-function experiment. For those who think SARS2 may have escaped At least 11 gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

4) Security and safety of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology: The state of readiness of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology considerably alarmed the State Department inspectors who visited it from the Beijing embassy in 2018. “The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable of January 19, 2018.

5) Dr. Zhengli Shi's experiments on humanized mice: Dr. Zhengli Shi's work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify that for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.) “Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice." It continues “We will use S protein sequence data, ingectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.” What this means is that Dr. Zhengli Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people. The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein. It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The article cites all of its sources. If the credibility of the article us undermined by the fact that Nicholas Wade published a controversial book then the information concerning the lab leak hypothesis can be cited directly from the sources listed in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comments:

1 is already presented on this page: The proximity of the laboratory to the initial outbreak has led some to speculate that it may be the entry point. RaTG13 was sampled from bats in Yunnan (located roughly 1,300 km (810 mi) away from Wuhan), and there are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province.

2 and 3 are not explanations exclusive to the lab theory. The 20-90 year evolutionary gap could be explained by undiscovered animal viruses and as yet undiscovered human adaptation (for instance, in a single immunocompromised individual [18]). Same with the furin cleavage site, lack of detection of a similar furin cleavage site to date in a betacoronavirus does not mean it is impossible to evolve naturally (see: [19]). But these are all reasons why we depend on secondary sources collecting primary studies, instead of listing every single paper that ever comes up with a possibility.

4 depends if you have a reliable source and the change won't give undue weight. Right now, nearly equal text is given to the four hypotheses the WHO evaluated (which is a significant rebalance from the WHO's report, which spent very little time on the lab hypothesis). I'd suggest that it's best to maintain that, meaning either adding additional weight to the other hypotheses, or pulling other potentially relevant info from the lab paragraph. The other three hypotheses have other details which have been summarized for brevity, and WP:NPOV means we should treat all four similarly.

5 is purely speculative, disputed by other sources, and has the same level of detail concerns as #4.

While credibility is certainly part of it, giving equal weight to the four hypotheses means we need to be selective about what we present about each of them. That the lab leak has a similar quantity of text (despite the mainstream view being that it's the least likely explanation) should be appreciated as something of a rarity, pushing for greater weight to be given to some theories would likely end up with those the mainstream considers most likely to get more weight (not the lab hypothesis) per WP:GEVAL. As a new editor, you would be well served by reading the policies and guidelines to better understand whether your recommendations are suitable for wikipedia or not. You may also consider editing pages on other topics first, to get a better understanding in a less contentious environment. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)