User talk:Novem Linguae/Essays/There was no lab leak/Archive 1

Your feedback is welcome
Hey. I wrote this essay today to try to crystallize my thinking on this whole lab leak thing. If you have a minute, feel free to peruse it and see if I am missing any good sources or got any important points wrong. By the way, I really respect your work in this area and I appreciate the leadership you've provided throughout. Happy editing. – Novem Linguae (talk) 06:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Nice essay
Just wanted to compliment you on the essay, its a fascinating topic, and I like your open-minded approach to it. Forich (talk) 22:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , thanks friend. Yes, I agree that it's a super interesting topic. Trying my best to stay npov. I remember you from the detailed source analysis you did... Forget what page it was on, but you did a great job. I can tell you did thorough research and are also trying to stay npov. It's definitely a tricky topic to edit in. – Novem Linguae (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Parody (or disruptive and pointy, depending how you see it) copy of this
See User talk:50.201.195.170/Essays/Lab Leak Theory Reasonable... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:55, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * And deleted as WP:POLEMIC... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

MEDLINE
Since it's your own personal essay, free free to remove. — Paleo  Neonate  – 03:00, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , looks good to me. Thanks for contributing. Face-smile.svg – Novem Linguae (talk) 06:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Chinese COVID death toll
Hey guys. What are your thoughts on how accurate the Chinese COVID death toll is? Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, 3rd paragraph describes China's numbers as being accurate, and their low death count due to a thorough response. But I'm getting pushback on this idea from some people, so just wanted to double check. Is this argument that China has a very low COVID death toll solid enough to keep in the essay? Thanks. – Novem Linguae (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I am also interested in the answer. At first glance I am seeing:
 * Sources that are telling whoppers about how high the numbers are.
 * Sources that are telling whoppers about how low the numbers are.
 * Good-faith journalists and scientists trying to figure out the truth but coming up with different numbers because this one is really hard to figure out with all the lies flying about.
 * I think you might have to give a range of estimates with attribution. In fact, documenting the whoppers would be good information to see who the liars are. Everybody talks about North Korea's claimed 0% Covid-19 rate for the same reason that Kim Jong-un claims to have cured Aids, Ebola and cancer with single miracle drug is so interesting -- and the reason is not because the claims are accurate. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Maximum damage
"In my opinion, Trump and the US government want COVID-19's origin to be something that gives China maximum responsibility for the pandemic, and are selectively looking for evidence to support that." I seem to remember that there are sources quoting relevant remarks that don't only make it an editor's opinion and the essay could likely cite some...,  this wasn't Trump but Missouri,  mentions "And he continues to smear the World Health Organization in a transparent quest for scapegoats",  mentions CDC defunding, suboptimal handling of the local situation, spreading disinformation about it and blaming China...  There's still a more recent source I was looking for but didn't find again though, this was from a Guardian search, so it was likely in another paper. If I eventually fall on it I'll link it, — Paleo Neonate  – 06:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Novem Linguae. could you please get the tense right? "Trump and the US government want". Which US government? The current one? The one under Trump? At the very least it should be "Trump wanted" with a bit of material about what Biden and the current US government wants. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the feedback. Has Biden done much to walk back the lab leak idea? If not, then present tense may still be appropriate. – Novem Linguae (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Judging by stuff like Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19 ("On 14 April 2021, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and other officials of the Biden Administration, said that they had not ruled out the possibility of a laboratory accident as the origin of the Covid-19 virus.[99]"), likely not; though Biden has spared us the shenanigans coming directly from the former on daily twitter posts. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't keep up with US politics, so I don't know whether US government should be past tense. Certainly Trump should be. A quick search came up with these:
 * Obviously when you wrote that you had particular individuals in the US government in mind. Just the president? Cabinet members that Biden replaced? Senators who are still in office? Agency heads that were retained? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:26, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * (...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Trump and Pompeo seemed to be the most egregious offenders. I think it likely Trump directed entire agencies to push the lab leak theory. Some of the statements coming out of the State Department in late 2020/early 2021 were particularly egregious. – Novem Linguae (talk) 04:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. So "Trump and the US government want" should be changed to "Trump and the State Department wanted", thus fixing the incorrect tense and no longer implying that post office letter carriers and national park rangers want the same thing Trump wanted. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Has the Biden administration done enough to distance themselves from the lab leak theory? For example, some quick googling "is us government pushing lab leak theory" reveals this NPR article on the Biden administration 1) refusing to rule out the lab leak, and 2) criticizing the WHO report on shaky grounds. – Novem Linguae (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I trust Joe Biden about as much as I trust Xi Jinping or Donald Trump. this is from a source that I trust, but so is this and this. I don't know how to reconcile them. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 19:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

The New York Times
This story from The New York Times is very informative: --Guy Macon (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation
 * Great article. Thanks for sharing. I added it to the essay. – Novem Linguae (talk) 16:40, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Here comes the science! (1)
Reviews by scientists:
 * Statement from Prof Edward Holmes on the SARS-CoV-2 virus --University of Sydney
 * The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 -- National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine
 * Why misinformation about COVID-19’s origins keeps going viral --National Geographic
 * MIT Review #1 --Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * MIT Review #2 --Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * MIT Review #3 --Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * MIT Review #4 --Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * Critical Analysis of the New Preprint that Claims Proof for Bioengineered SARS-CoV-2 --Microbial Instincts
 * In Response: Yan et al Preprint Examinations of the Origin of SARS-CoV-2 --Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
 * Still no evidence the coronavirus was made in a lab --New Scientist 

Other reviews:
 * Cloaked Science: The Yan Reports --Harvard University Media Manipulation Casebook
 * How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation --The New York Times
 * Virality Project (China): Coronavirus Conspiracy Claims --Stanford University
 * FACT CHECK: COVID-19 Whistleblower Li-Meng Yan Releases Paper With Other Scientists 'Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification' --Tech Times
 * Weird science: How a 'shoddy' Bannon-backed paper on coronavirus origins made its way to an audience of millions --CNN

Related Wikipedia pages: --Guy Macon (talk) 01:57, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Li-Meng Yan
 * COVID-19 misinformation
 * Investigations into the origin of COVID-19

"If they even mention it"
Many sources seem to entirely assume a zoonotic origin and not even mention anything else, so I don't know if we should add something about that. For example: "'The suspected animal-to-human jumping of 4 betacoronaviruses including the human coronaviruses OC43(1890), SARS-CoV-1(2003), MERS-CoV(2012), and SARS-CoV-2(2019) indicates their significant pandemic potential. The presence of a large reservoir of coronaviruses in bats and other wild mammals, culture of mixing and selling them in urban markets with suboptimal hygiene, habit of eating exotic mammals in highly populated areas, and the rapid and frequent air travels from these areas are perfect ingredients for brewing rapidly exploding epidemics.' (abstract) 'The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown. Recombination is a frequent event for the viral subgenus Sarbecovirus, which contains SARS-CoV, bat SARS related CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 [54]. Some studies suggested that the bat SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses are recombinants of lineages related to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, and SARS-CoV-2 may result from recombinations between these bat SARS related coronavirus and the pangolin SARS related coronavirus [55, 56]. However, another study suggested that recombination may not be involved in the generation of SARS-CoV-2, but the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 shares the same ancestral trait as bat viruses [57]. The divergence date between SARS-CoV-2 and bat sarbecovirus has been estimated to be 1948 [57].' (later in the article - no mention of labs or leaks or anything)" "Since SARS-CoV-2 very likely has a zoonotic origin, it is important to identify the original animal reservoir to prevent future similar outbreaks. Therefore, during the last months, a significant number of different animal species were either sampled in the field or experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2, in order to evaluate their susceptibility to infection and to assess their potential as animal reservoirs." "'The zoonotic SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 continues to spread worldwide, with devastating consequences.' (abstract) 'The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in a health crisis not witnessed since the 1918–19 Spanish influenza pandemic. The most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 is natural selection of the virus in an animal host followed by zoonotic transfer.' And then there's the 'Clinical pathology of COVID-19' section which describes similarities with all of the other coronaviruses..." "'There is a strong evidence that SARS‐CoV‐2 virus originated in bats 64 ; however, the intermediate animal host is still unknown (Figure ​(Figure3).3). Several studies showed that pangolins, snakes, turtles, and mink are all possible intermediate hosts, however, further investigations are needed. 66, 67, 68 It is worth mentioning that recent findings that analyse the probable animal reservoir to Covid‐19 suggest the snake as a reservoir, based on relative synonymous codon usage bias. 67 However, the missing link or intermediate link for animal to human transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 from a recent study suggests the DNA and protein sequence of Malayan pangolins. 69' 'SARS‐CoV‐2 was first identified in Wuhan city in China in hospitalized patients who previously visited the Huanan wet seafood market where various animals including chickens, pigs, pangolins, bats, snakes, frogs, rabbits, and marmots are sold for human consumption, proposing a suitable environment for zoonotic infection spill‐over to humans. 67, 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 Scientists believe that these traditional Chinese practices might be responsible for the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic in humans and that the recurrent interactions between humans and animals without proper biosafety measures present a substantial risk for the occurrence of zoonotic diseases. 74
 * (I've trimmed the list of authors a wee bit...)

Zoonotic CoVs have crossed the species barrier twice in the past 2 decades (SARS‐CoV; 2002 and MERS‐CoV; 2012). Thus, scientists have speculated that SARS‐CoV‐2 resulted from a zoonotic spillover event as well. Zoonotic CoVs need to propagate in their zoonotic reservoirs, and then, seek the chances to spillover via intermediate hosts into susceptible human targets, where they can maintain human‐to‐human transmission. Bats have been revealed as the natural hosts for several human CoVs, including HCoV‐NL63, HCoV‐229E, SARS‐CoV, and MERS‐CoV. 75, 76 Genome sequence analysis confirmed that SARS‐CoV‐2 is 96% identical to the bat CoV RaTG13 at the whole‐genomic level, 77 and hence bats are believed to be the primary source of origin for the novel SARS‐CoV‐2. However, the intermediate host that is yet to be elucidated. 11, 67 , 70 , 72 , 78 Researchers proposed two hypotheses for the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2: (1) Natural selection may have occurred in an animal host before transmission to mankind; and (2) natural selection of viruses may have occurred in humans after zoonotic transmission. 79 In this regard, studies involving the use of animal models or cell culture are in need to help clarify these two scenarios. 79'" So, basically, this shows that serious scientists do not give much credence to this. Also note the excellent, recent paper: Which has a detailed breakdown of existing hypotheses and rebuttals for the nonsense ones. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:11, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Add section on shady origins of lab leak idea?
Hey. You made a great talk page post recently summarizing the shady origins of the lab leak idea, here. Would it be OK if I copied this into this essay? Thanks. – Novem Linguae (talk) 19:22, 10 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes. Anyone can copy (with or without modifications) anything I write anywhere unless I say something specific like "Copyright 2021 Yoyodyne", which I do when someone pays me to write, say, a technical manual and thus they own it. Because I feel so strongly about allowing anyone to make copies without any requirements like attribution, asking permission first, etc., everything I write is released under CC0. And BTW, Wikipedia is telling you a fib when they say everything is released under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. The actual rule is "CC BY-SA 3.0 or any less restrictive license." --Guy Macon (talk) 21:36, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added a section just now. Feel free to heavily edit it, since it's your content, and since you seem to have a knack for getting to the bottom of conspiracy theories. Maybe keep the non-collapsed part to two paragraphs, so it's a similar size to the other sections. You can also take a stab at re-wording the "Government misinformation" section if you want. We may want to pepper in some of your citations as well. – Novem Linguae (talk) 21:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Re. "shady origins" - there's also "shady methods". Daszak and Andersen have a couple of interesting rebuttals to the conspiracists on his Twitter (https://twitter.com/peterdaszak), ex. ; - the news articles they cite aren't exactly MEDRS, but they could possibly be cited regarding stuff which is not subject to it (respectively, prior concerns with the sea food market and something to add to the misinfo article). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  16:21, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Origins of SARS-CoV-2
Please help to reconcile the contradictory claims documented at Fringe theories/Noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Misinterpretation of sources?
Hello, I would like to ask why the essay is titled "There was no lab leak". As far as I know it is a statement not supported by any of the MEDRS that the essay mentions, from what i see there are MEDRS which describe a lab leak as unlikely or implausible, but none which definitely say "there was no leak", right? --Francesco espo (talk) 22:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The title could be rephrased to e.g. "the lab leak is a fringe theory" or "the lab leak is a [much ]less likely theory than transmission from animals"? Apokrif (talk) 13:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

A few issues....
I just took a quick look at this essay, and several issues in a couple of its sections stood out to me straight away:

In the "China very low deaths, USA very high deaths" section, you apparently take the Chinese government's official death toll (ca. 5K) at face value, when, as far as I'm aware, few others do. Just one example I found just now in a quick Google search: " To date, China has put its nationwide pandemic death toll at 4,735, but that is certainly a huge underestimate." Note that this is from the Washington Post, which is hardly a pro-Trump or pro-Republican outlet!

Moreover, if China did have a significantly lower per capita death rate than the US (which they may well have, but their covid death toll was certainly much higher than 5K), there could be any number of reasons for this, such as: 1) Their authoritarian system allowed them to more quickly effect a robust lockdown.  2) Their population may have had more acquired immunity, due to more previous exposure to other similar coronaviruses. 3) Chinese people may have more innate resistance to the virus than certain other ethnic/racial groups. In particular, people of African dissent seem to be especially vulnerable, and this appears to be due to more than just socioeconomic factors...

It could be a combination of all three, or any number of other potential factors, but ultimately none of this has any bearing on the origin of the virus.

The other section that I find especially problematic is "Suspicious origins of the lab leak idea."

Frankly, this section reads as nothing more than association fallacy, combined with a hefty helping of WP:idontlikeit.

It's basically saying "various immoral/unreliable/suspicious/bad people say X, so therefore X is not true." Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of logic or the scientific method can see that this sort of reasoning is deeply fallacious.

Moreover, the idea that an emergent outbreak of a previously unknown coronavirus strain, which first appeared in the immediate vicinity of a lab which studies and manipulates such viruses, may have escaped for said lab, is hardly a fanciful notion. On the contrary, it's a rather self-evident hypothesis, just as it would be if a new virus were to have first emerged in the vicinity of Fort Detrick, Maryland!

It is of course true that Trump and his allies would have motive to amplify such discourse - in order to deflect from his own less than ideal handling of the pandemic within the US - but this doesn't really say anything (one way or the other) about the actual accuracy of the lab leak hypothesis.

While the knee-jerk compulsion to automatically take the opposite view from Trump on everything probably contributed to many rejecting the lab leak theory early on, these days many more people, including those with views very different from Trump, are taking the idea very seriously. One notable example is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

-2003:CA:8748:5C71:E17C:1138:2B8B:B9DD (talk) 09:42, 25 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hey there. Thanks for posting. I think many of your counter-arguments are reasonable, although I'm not so sure about this "Chinese people are more immune to COVID" idea, or this "coronavirus springing up in Wuhan is equivalent to coronavirus springing up in Maryland". Chinese horseshoe bats are native to that part of China, so a coincidence is quite plausible. Anyway, the ideas in the "government misinformation" section are not iron clad, but it is my personal opinion that they are stronger and make more sense than alternative ideas I've seen. This is probably one of those things we'll just have to agree to disagree on. – Novem Linguae (talk) 10:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for the friendly and civil reply. Of course you're correct that it's plausible that the emergence of covid in close proximity to the Wuhan lab could be purely coincidental.  I wasn't asserting that this proximity offered any sort of conclusive proof, but simply that it meant that the lab leak theory was a very reasonable hypothesis, and not some sort of fanciful or unhinged conspiracy theory.


 * As the article I linked above, from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, notes, at this point there's not direct evidence for either theory - natural emergence or lab leak. Notably, unlike with SARS-1 and MERS, no intermediate host animal has been identified.  I definitely recommend that you and others read that article (if you haven't already), as it offers a rather detailed and well informed and articulated summation of the evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis.


 * This article also notes the danger of group-think:


 * "Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other’s work. So why didn’t other virologists point out that the Andersen group’s argument was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today’s universities speech can be very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community’s declared view risks having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency."


 * None of this requires or implies some sort of grand global conspiracy. It's simply a matter of scientists, while being intelligent and well-educated people, still being human beings, and as such vulnerable to prejudice, group-think, instincts for self-preservation, and even conflicts of interest - direct in the case of people like Daszak, and more indirect in the case of other virologists with a (well founded) fear that public support for, and funding of, the sort of research that they do could be undermined if the lab-leak theory were to gain traction.


 * Anyway, I've got to get going, but might check back in at some point in the future. Have a good day! -2003:CA:8748:5C71:E17C:1138:2B8B:B9DD (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Decent points. I hesitate to trust The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists too much, as it is not a biomedical field, but I'll take a look. "Have a good day." Thanks, you too :) – Novem Linguae (talk) 11:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey and 2B8B:B9DD, just wanted to say I started collecting the many errors Thomas Wade makes in that Bulletin piece. You can find the list over here. I have a PhD in virology and cannot stand when people publish things that are not only outright incorrect, but restate proven falsehoods. I was just amazed at how many mistakes he makes. Really ruined his credibility for me, but that probably started when Wade said race was correlated with intelligence back in 2014.-- Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:59, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , awesome, a subject matter expert. On Wikipedia, you guys are super rare and super needed in these complex topic areas. Maybe you can add Gain of function research to your watchlist. From your Reddit posts, you seem to know quite a bit about that, and the article is not in good shape. Thanks for commenting here, and I'm glad you like the essay. I'll definitely take a thorough look at your Reddit posts. Happy editing :) – Novem Linguae (talk) 22:59, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * holy cow, that article really is a tire fire. Makes sense for a hot button issue that even virologists hate to touch, because we think everybody considers us to be mad scientists. lol. Will definitely give it a careful read... thanks for the heads up and happy editing :) -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 23:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Related: literature review

 * You might be able to help me with User:RandomCanadian/The origins of COVID-19: literature review - I'm trying to compile the sources I can find on the topic (including the ones cited here, and others) to see what they say, to improve the existing sections on this in the related articles (admittedly, this might be massive levels of overkill, but there's no harm in being too thorough, is there?). Feel free to suggest sources I might have missed or lend a hand in assessing those I have found. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Would love to :) As an aside, I actually acted as peer reviewer on some of the articles you've gathered so far! Can't say which ones ofc. Right now I'm studying for my board exams (and shouldn't be procrastinating on here, haha), but once that clears up I would love to put some work into this. Will keep you posted. -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 22:31, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment

 * Hey, just wanted to say I thought this was really well done. Great essay, gets to the point, cites the right sources, and makes clear the consensus. Also wanted to point you to this longform piece I wrote on Reddit about this exact question and the evidence for and against. In case you hadn't come across it! Keep up the good work. -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 17:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , I read your PDF cover to cover just now. Exceptionally well done. You achieved a perfect mix of technical, lay-person accessible, and good writing. I'm sure you're already looking into it, but that definitely deserves to be published in a reputable source of some kind and widely distributed. – Novem Linguae (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, you're very kind :) I'm just glad it's still bouncing around these days! Maybe I'll try and clean it up and get it published at Bioessays or another op-ed type place... But I think I also might want to just keep my CV away from this lab leak nonsense, lol. And keep this post in the realm of the internet where the discussion lives. Where the people are-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 00:55, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , I went ahead and added a "Technical evidence" section today based on your PDF. I hope you don't mind. Feel free to edit it if you'd like. Good luck on your exams. – Novem Linguae (talk) 11:53, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Here comes the science! (2)

 * "SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are members of the Sarbecovirus subgenus of betacoronaviruses (family Coronaviridae).
 * Two sarbecoviruses lineages, GX (Guangxi) and GD (Guangdong), have been identified in Malayan pangolins, Manis javanica, illegally imported into China.
 * A variety of sarbecoviruses have also been described in bats of the genus Rhinolophus...
 * The bat coronavirus RaTG13 genome was sequenced from a sample from a Rhinolophus affinis captured at Mojiang cave in Yunnan province, China in 2013.
 * RaTG13 remains the virus with the highest overall sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2...
 * Newly sequenced sarbecoviruses from bats captured in Cambodia, Thailand and Japan possess different combinations of spike motifs in the RBD and the S1/S2 junction that were first described in SARS-CoV-2.
 * These observations are consistent with the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 and strongly inconsistent with a laboratory origin".

Source: "Spike protein sequences of Cambodian, Thai and Japanese bat sarbecoviruses provide insights into the natural evolution of the Receptor Binding Domain and S1/S2 cleavage site" by Edward C. Holmes (Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, School of Life and Environmental Sciences and School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia), Kristian G. Andersen (Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California USA), Andrew Rambaut (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK), and Robert F. Garry (Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane University Medical Center, New Orleans, Louisiana USA)

URL: [ https://virological.org/t/spike-protein-sequences-of-cambodian-thai-and-japanese-bat-sarbecoviruses-provide-insights-into-the-natural-evolution-of-the-receptor-binding-domain-and-s1-s2-cleavage-site/622 ]

--Guy Macon (talk) 14:45, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting, but that's all pre-prints/not peer-reviewed. It's easy to find credible sources which provide compelling arguments (for ex. the naturally-occuring FCS in other coronaviruses) against the lab origin claims. We should wait till this gets published in reputable journals. FWIW, the far more interesting paper on that site is the one about COVID likely not having originated from the Wuhan seafood market (an argument made recently by Foster, see ; a hypothesis which, according to our friendly neighbourhood virologist, is also an interesting route. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:21, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The fact that several prominent experts in virology have concluded that the spike protein sequences "are consistent with the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 and strongly inconsistent with a laboratory origin", combined with the fact that those arguing on the other side have literally zero actual biological evidence, may not be acceptable as an article citation because it is a preprint, but it is excellent at identifying those Wikipedia editors (you know who you are) who are going to ignore the actual biology as being inconvenient facts and continue to believe what they want to believe despite all evidence and arguments to the contrary. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The bigger problem is how we reconcile the dramatic difference between how academic sources (preferred per the whole of our policies on reliable sources) present this and how news sources treat this ("journalistic false balance" is not a novel concept). Try explaining that when scientific sources are dismissed as "just one paper" or "outdated" (which is, for matters which are in the news, the natural outcome of following and not leading the sources, but I digress) or a multitude of other reasons (and of course, we don't have quite the same qualitative measurements for the popular press so this is like comparing apples and oranges rotten tomatoes)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There are people who in good faith are not convinced that the lab leak theory is highly unlikely, but there are others who know in their hearts that it is true because their favorite bullshit source says so. You can often identify the latter by the fact that they keep confusing "we should investigate further" with "likely" or even "proven". No scientist ever has come out against paying scientists to investigate anything further. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Not science
You’re quoting from a paper forum post by Robert F. Garry and other co-authors of the hardline Proximal Origin paper letter, that reputed fellow co-author W. Ian Lipkin has now distanced himself from. This paper forum post, like the Proximal Origin letter has not been peer reviewed, does not provide any supporting data for Reproducibility, and has been critiqued by scientists in their own forums. What you are demonstrating is that there is a scientific controversy on COVID-19 origins, with scientists holding opposing views, which we should cover with WP:NPOV. CutePeach (talk) 08:47, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: I no longer read any comments by CutePeach due to repeated snarky comments verging on personal attacks, and I have not and will not read the above.
 * I find the arguments at User:Novem Linguae/Essays/There was no lab leak to be compelling. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Segretto (whom you're using a tweet of as "critique by scientists in their own forums") is a lab leak proponent, so of course, she'd critique those espousing the majority viewpoint. As for the piece in Nature by Andersen et al., it is being cited by more than 1400+ fellow scientists. It clearly is an influential paper (many citations explicitly espouse it's views, judging it to be reliable), by top virologists, in a prestigious journal. So it clearly has been "accepted by the scientific community", and WP:USEBYOTHERS (papers with 1k+ citations are rare) strongly argues that it is a reliable source (although a primary one, so we're better using the secondary, review papers which comment on it). If you don't like that its viewpoint is not the one you like, well then the problem is not with WP:NPOV, but with your POV. We are biased towards science and scientists. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  21:27, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, take a look at for more details on Andersen et al.  One thing I noticed from that altmetric page is some tweets from lab leakers which are trying to make noise from the fact Andersen, in a preliminary email to Fauci, seemed to be unsure about the origins; before conducting more in-depth analysis, as described by Andersen here. Of course, something that will likely be argued misinterpreted endlessly in the upcoming future... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  00:45, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Vanity Fair
Let's look at one popular press source that several people have emailed to me:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

I am going to hold off on commenting for now and let everyone read it with an open mind. Comments welcome! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:37, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Just finished reading that through twice....never thought I'd commend Vanity Fair for such a thorough piece of investigative journalism, but yeah this sums up the current knowledge and history very well. Worth a read for that analysis, and the primary sources/documents they include in the piece. Thanks for dropping that here, it's a good read!  Cat  Damon  20:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The Vanity Fair piece isn't MEDRS, so Wikipedia can't use any of it in support of the LLT, is that correct? &mdash;Ashley Y 21:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Can't be used in an article for biomedical claims, but usable for claims about politics and about events. For biomedical claims, we should go to the sources that VF and evaluate them. VF certainly doesn't claim to be expert in virology.
 * The restrictions on articles don't apply to essays, but Novem Linguae is only allowing WP:MEDRS sources for biomedical claims, so it amounts to the same thing. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:54, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The MEDRS sources in the first section make it clear that lab leak is a conspiracy theory and very poorly regarded by the scientific community, but they do not go into the kind of detail needed to thoroughly debunk it. For the "arguments against lab leak" section, I prefaced it with a warning that it contains opinions and original research, then I snuck some non-MEDRS sources in there. This is allowed in an essay, and I also added a warning to that section, so hopefully there are no objections. Happy editing. – Novem Linguae (talk) 22:36, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Leaving aside the essay, what about (in an article) claims about politics and events that tend to support the LLT? &mdash;Ashley Y 22:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That discussion is/has been taking place here most recently, though there's been various discussions scattered throughout. Hope this helps! Cat  Damon  23:03, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * See this and this for my opinion on the matter. In short, yes, we can use non-scientific sources for non-scientific topics (and well, newspapers are obviously reliable sources about politics and recent events, since that is their usual expertise). We however shouldn't use them for arguing claims about scientific topics - we can use them to report the existence of such claims, and notable proponents, and political developments, but we should avoid them (especially if, as in this case, we have better) for actual science. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  15:41, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The Vanity Fair article claims that the scientific process around COVID-19 origins has been compromised in various extra-scientific ways. These claims, which don't rely on scientific expertise per se, tend to support the LLT. Can we use them in articles? &mdash;Ashley Y 19:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd be inclined to cite WP:REDFLAG and the well known saying that "exceptional claims require exceptional sources". Trying to discredit mainstream science is also a common "conspiracy theory" theme, so I'd be particularly suspicious of anything like that. As I said, we should strive, as much as possible, to use the best sources. News and recent events, along with political analysis and commentary, is something newspapers are reputed for, but serious science (including criticism of science, and changing scientific positions) is best left to serious scientists publishing with review from their peers, and not people with a journalism degree. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:42, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, you are saying that reliable journalistic claims of, e.g., political manipulation of some scientific process should not be used in Wikipedia articles to cast doubt on the outcomes of that science, is that correct? I do recommend reading the Vanity Fair article if you haven't already. &mdash;Ashley Y 19:59, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not seeing anything in that VF piece that would be sufficient (nor would only one article in VF be enough to do so anyway) to throw away the scientific sources. The only concrete political manipulation I see recorded (and, extensively, at that) is that of US government actions by US government actors. The rest, we're better off leaving to scientists than to anonymous intelligence reports and fact sheets. Political blame games, and "efforts to “stove pipe” intelligence analysis" (neither China nor the US government are disinterested parties), isn't particularly new, nor is it unique to COVID. As for China being authoritarian and non-transparent, that's not new either, as the VF piece itself says: "China obviously bears responsibility for stonewalling investigators. Whether it did so out of sheer authoritarian habit or because it had a lab leak to hide is, and may always be, unknown."RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

"It's an interesting coincidence that China advocates for the theory that gives China the least blame, the frozen food hypothesis"
Re: "It's an interesting coincidence that China advocates for the theory that gives China the least blame, the frozen food hypothesis":


 * China revives conspiracy theory of US army link to Covid
 * China pushes conspiracy theories on COVID origin, vaccines
 * China counters Biden's Covid origins lab probe ... by calling for a US lab probe
 * China Floats U.S. Military Lab as Possible COVID Origin Point, Urges WHO to Investigate

I think the page should say "China advocates for theories that gives China the least blame such as the US army lap leak hypothesis and the frozen food hypothesis" --Guy Macon (talk) 23:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅. Thanks for the feedback. – Novem Linguae (talk) 23:27, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I suppose one could call this the US army lap leak hypothesis. :-) —2d37 (talk) 07:50, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, I notice that that AP article says as fact that Pres. Trump was trying to deflect blame for his government’s handling of the pandemic when he said last year he had seen evidence the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory; I wonder whether that's worth using here or in mainspace. —2d37 (talk) 08:00, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The bit about Maatje Benassi is already at COVID-19 misinformation. There is so much on Trump in the Covid-19 misinformation page that I question whether the AP article really adds anything that we don't already cover. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:28, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Urban settings as "canaries in the viral pandemic coal mine"
Including this here as fodder for what I will ultimately merge into the essay:

Many previous outbreaks have shown that viruses often emerge or cross-over from animals to humans in suburban or rural settings, only to be first seen in the canary in the coal mine that is the urban center. Lots of people clustered together makes a great setting for the slightly more rare presentation to become obvious. It's where probability dictates we will often find the first cases of a new viral illness, even when cross-over occurs in more rural settings. Examples:


 * 1995 Ebolavirus outbreak in Kikwit (pop. ~500,000) (first case was likely a farmer/charcoal miner who contracted the virus in a very rural setting some 13 miles south of Kikwit, but it quickly spread to the adjacent very urban area),
 * 2002 outbreak of SARS-1 in Foshan (pop. 7.2 million) (butchers and other animal-adjacent workers likely got the virus first from civet cats/bats in suburban/rural animal husbandry settings, spread to the very urban area of Foshan),
 * 2012 outbreak of MERS in Jeddah (pop. 4.7 million) (first known case was a 60 year old man with no direct connection to camels who died in a very urban hospital in Jeddah, but the first cases (for this and subsequent outbreaks in Qatar as well) were likely camelmongers and traders who lived in the suburban and rural areas outside the city proper, with spillover happening in warehouses and barns in suburban/rural settings),

"All roads lead to rome" and more specifically, urban centers represent a canary in the coal mine of viral emergence. The larger the urban center, and the more asymptomatic the disease, the more likely this sort of canary-ing is. Is it possible the emergence actually did happen in Wuhan? Yes, but it would be unique if so. It would be different from known coronaviruses and other emerging virus patterns. All of the outbreaks I linked above, at first, looked like they emerged from the indicated city. Because that's where most if not all of the early cases were. But subsequent epidemiological investigation and sequencing showed the actual emergence was likely suburban or rural, not in the urban center where the first cases were identified. Areas with lots of people tend to have the first hospitalized cases in these things, but that doesn't mean that's where the virus is actually coming from.

I am happy to incorporate the above, but I am rather slow at these things, so feel free to get started without me. I think any and all arguments for why Wuhan is not an "obvious" origin are arguments against the lab leak being extremely plausible.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 18:21, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * . Added. Thank you for suggesting this. I hope you don't mind that I condensed it down to 3 sentences. I suspect that people are more likely to read shorter essays. If you'd like me to use all of this, we can add it collapsed next to the bullet. – Novem Linguae (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * hahahaha no absolutely. Brevity is the soul of wit, and I have never been very good at it. Thank you!-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 22:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for this
I recently came across the assertion that there are no sources asserting the existence of a scientific consensus that the lab leak is unlikely, and the zoonotic origin most likely, and this essay was very useful in that discussion. So thank you, Novem Linguae, for writing this and keeping it updated as well as you have. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants  Tell me all about it.  20:04, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , you're very welcome. Happy to help. – Novem Linguae (talk) 23:16, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

April 2021 Paper about tracing back the index case and the timing of spillover
I just added two things:


 * 1. a point in the "The likely origin of COVID-19" section about timing of the index case likely being mid-October to early November 2019.


 * 2. A mention of same in the "Evidence against a lab leak" section since this is part of why Wuhan and the market are not an obvious origin point.

These two things are based on these two primary articles published in April of 2021 and March of 2020, this news piece in Nature news, and this secondary review covering the same info.

Feel free to condense down to just that secondary source as per MEDRS to make it consistent, but I included the April 2021 primary-source article in Science in the citations because I actually just thought it was really cool and well-done and a great example of how we figure things out in early epidemic modelling. Definitely a sleeper hit and worth the read for anyone interested.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 17:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks great. Thanks for your work on this! – Novem Linguae (talk) 18:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * — Would it make sense to put it as further reading rather than as a source (perhaps with commentary explaining what makes it cool)? (Of course I don't speak for Novem Linguae, but) I imagine it would be best if the essay follows its own guidance that primary studies should probably not be used as sources. —2d37 (talk) 09:10, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , thanks for your comment. For the "Top quality, WP:MEDRS sources" section, we should only use the absolute best sources. For the other sections, I think it is useful to our readers to loosen our sourcing requirements, so that we can present what we judge to be the best arguments. Luckily this is a userspace essay, so we have some latitude. – Novem Linguae (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Essay off-wiki on the coverage of the lab leak hypothesis in Wikipedia
I've written a three part blog series about Wikipedia's coverage of the lab leak theory in my blog. Please read as it intersects on many topics of this excellent essay. Forich (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * . Interesting blog posts. It's an interesting topic and there's a lot to write about. I am infected by the same writing bug... no pun intended ;-) Feel free to post parts 4, 5, etc. here when you release them. – Novem Linguae (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I do have in mind a part IV. I hope when the dust settle on all this lab leak thing, that I can draft something longer that groups all the posts together in a polished form.  Since we have many point of intersection and you have good writing skills, please  let me know if you are open to collaboration in such an endeavor. We could brainstorm the appropiate format once you agree to jump in the project (I am initially thinking of a modest Original Research preprint in ArXiv). Forich (talk) 22:35, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

New papers / COVID papers database
Two new interesting papers:

Plus, there's also the NCBI database, which I've added to the sources template:

Feel free to look these up for further good sources on the topic. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

What kind of sources NOT to use
Immense thanks to CutePeach for listing most of the BS sources in one post, here. One journal which comes up often is - yep you've guessed it, Env Chem Lett... I'll do a source text/doi search see how often it is cited here, because it seems rather a dubious source in light of this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:16, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2210.1007/s10311%22 14 total uses (only one on a directly COVID-related article). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:22, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The use in question is to support the statement After the COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing in June, evidence of food transmission was reported in China in early July 2020 by the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 on frozen foods, packaging materials, and storage environments (Transmission of COVID-19). This is marked as a review article, but the relevant part smells like primary research to me; as the caption to Fig. 2 says, Information was compiled from announcements by local authorities. In any case, it should be replaced with a journal that is MEDLINE-indexed. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:30, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Reminds me of that Bulletin of Atomic Scientists source. Scientists in non-related fields. This topic is complex enough that we should really be looking to experts (virologists) to interpret things for us (furin cleavage sites, etc.) and also let us know the norms of their discipline. I'm not really interested in what a person on Twitter, an atomic scientist, or an environmental chemist thinks about furin cleavage sites. The same way I wouldn't ask a doctor about the design decisions behind a torque converter. – Novem Linguae (talk) 00:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * But I'm an electronics engineer! Surely that makes me an expert on Furin Cleavage Sites, right? The Furin Cleavage Site, or FCS, is the place on a Cockcroft–Walton generator where the electricity "cleaves" into two paths. It was named after Ichabod Furin, who invented it in 1869. Now if you will excuse me, I am off to remove my own appendix. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)