Regarding the origins of COVID: We were probably lied to and why it is important

Some people think that being concerned about the origin of Sars-Cov-2 or COVID-19 is a waste of time. I strongly disagree. Science is about finding and reporting facts and truths, not spinning inconvenient reality into something politically palatable for some people or any government. 

I've come to reassess my July 16 post on the COVID origin for a second time. Initially it seemed we were lied to. Then I reassessed after seeing a different analysis and attributed the early COVID origin story to incomplete knowledge and confusion. Now after looking at additional information, I believe we were lied to and betrayed by high level scientists in the US and Europe, with the knowledge and complicity of the Chinese the US governments.

This story is long and complex. In summary, my current beliefs are:

• It is more likely than not, maybe ~65% chance, that COVID-19 arose from a laboratory research and an accident that allowed the virus to escape, most likely by infecting someone in the lab. It seems less likely that COVID arose from a natural cause such as an infection coming from infected animals in food markets or sources in nature, such as bat guano in caves. Evidence of that possibility lies in the fact that the Wuhan research was conducted under a lower level of biosafety containment level (BSL-2) that research with viruses like this warrant, i.e., at least BSL-3 or maybe BSL-4. Under BSL-2 conditions it is pretty easy for an infectious, airborne virus to get loose from the lab. BSL 1, 2, 3 and 4 containment equipment and protocols are summarized by the CDC here.

• Tony Fauci very probably, maybe ~85% chance, lied under oath** to the US Senate when he falsely claimed the US did not do gain-of-function research (making viruses worse, i.e., more pathogenic and/or more infectious) and did not fund virus research in Wuhan China. The implications of this mendacity is huge in my opinion. Those lies suggest Fauci is hiding something important. The thing he is most likely trying to hide is the implication of the facts that the NIH did fund gain-of-function (GoF) research in the Wuhan lab ($600,000 according to FactCheck.org). Therefore, research funded by US tax dollars could have been the some or all of the source of research leading to COVID-19 and the pandemic. Fauci and other scientists were trying to protect themselves, the NIH, and maybe the reputation of science itself, but in my opinion the cover-up attempt failed.

** Fauci is quoted as saying under oath: 'the NIH has never and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' In Jan. 2018, the US government restarted GoF research, which had been paused for three years to do a major safety reassessment. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health commented on the rationale for lifting the GoF research ban:

Those who support such research think that it is necessary to develop strategies to fight rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health, such as the flu virus, the viruses causing Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or Ebola. For instance, some of this so-called “gain-of-function” research—which aims to make germs more contagious, more deadly, or both—has aimed to create viruses that can easily pass between ferrets, so that researchers can understand how those changes occur and potentially how viruses go from infecting animals in the wild to transmitting between humans.

• In Feb 2020, leading researchers published a highly influential paper, entitled The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, that concluded that COVID-19 did not come from a laboratory or lab accident. Fauci and Francis Collins (head of the NIH) both favored that conclusion and apparently influenced the paper in that direction. That paper ended most debate about the origin for at least a year. There was insufficient evidence to draw that  conclusion. Arguments for remaining concerned about the origin of COVID-19 are valid. This video at ~4:50-7:15 (and later) discusses why the scientists might have lied by excluding a possible lab accident or source and why that untruthfulness is so terribly damaging to science generally and to public trust in government and science.

• In view of the flawed, politics-based conclusion about the origin of COVID in the Feb. 2020 paper, some scientists are now petitioning for that paper to be retracted. The public is invited to sign the petition online at this link. I signed the petition and donated money to the effort. That paper has caused serious irreparable damage, as the video above discusses at length. It needs to be retracted. People should sign the petition, with or without donating money.

• Evidence of US government complicity in a cover-up includes the summary quoted below. This is from a November 2022 webinar on the COVID origin. It is one hour and 41 minutes in length. The bottom line is that journalists have to file lawsuits to force the US government to turn over relevant COVID-related information that is supposed to be legally available under the FOIA. The US government is still stonewalling and breaking the law. I take this as compelling evidence there is an ongoing cover-up to keep the American people disinformed about the COVID origin via lies of omission. The summary comments:

Ms. Emily Kopp, an investigative journalist from US Right to Know (USRTK), has been gaining access to information that the US government and others did not release through dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits. In her presentation, Ms. Kopp repeatedly emphasized that there has been a lack of transparency from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other major actors regarding the high-risk research that has been ongoing in the US and abroad. She voiced her concerns about the credibility and integrity of leading institutions and individuals in the US, concluding, “The public deserves more clarity about the pandemic’s early days.”

Ms. Kopp described the extensive collaboration among labs and organizations in the US and labs in China on world-leading high-risk virology research, much of which had been underwritten by NIH and EcoHealth Alliance. According to Ms. Kopp, more than 1000 documents and progress reports from NIH and EcoHealth have still not been released.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Chair of the 

Lancet COVID-19 Commission

at the webinar

• The mainstream media is mostly failing to report most of this. Maybe that is mostly due to some combination of incompetence, subversion by corporate owners and maybe even some corruption. One needs to look elsewhere for reliable information, e.g., the Webinar shown above that Prof. Sachs led. The source Public comments on how its reporting and the documentary evidence it is based on is being attacked and smeared by some scientists, including Dr. Kristian Andersen, who co-authored the flawed Feb. 2020 paper:

The three of us and Matt Taibbi of Racket spread “conspiracy theories” and engaged in “quote mining” for our Tuesday scoop, “Top Scientists Misled Congress About Covid Origins, Newly Released Emails And Messages Show,” according to Kristian Andersen, the scientist who was the main subject of our article. The only thing his messages revealed, Andersen said, was “Scientists doing science and having private conversations.” (Andersen did not respond to our requests for comment.)

“None of this is surprising — the surprising part is that 'journalists' and others keep falling for the same bullshit,” wrote Andersen.

But his emails and Slack messages show that there was nothing theoretical about his conspiracy to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. Andersen makes clear in his messages that the purpose of the “Proximal Origin” paper was to “disprove,” in his words, the lab leak hypothesis. It was a propaganda exercise, not a scientific one.

The documents that Public and Racket were the first to report on show Andersen and his co-authors, Andrew Rambaut, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry, conspiring — by which we mean they made secret plans to engage in deceptive and unethical behavior and — to spread disinformation. Their conspiracy included coordinating with their “higher-ups” in the US and UK governments to deceive journalists, including a New York Times reporter.  

Our reporting led several people sympathetic to the lab leak hypothesis to demand the release of all the emails and Slack messages. “This calls for more transparency,” tweeted Zeynep Tufecki, a professor at Columbia University and a contributor to the New York Times, “rather than selective, partial releases —especially since the messages imply coordinated efforts for manipulating journalists etc…”

We agree and are thus happy today to release the full cache of Slack messages and emails covering the discussions between Andersen et al. as they wrote their influential “Proximal Origin,” paper, which Anthony Fauci and others in the US government used to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis.  

The messages vindicated researchers like the Broad Center’s Alina Chan, who coauthored a major book, Viral: The Search For Covid’s Origin, with British science journalist Matt Ridley, who Public interviewed for a podcast last month.

Public's links to the information their 

reporting is based on

Acknowledgement: Thanks to PD for bringing most of the information cited above to my attention.