I wrote a piece for the Harvard Petrie Bill of Health detailing the conventional spread patterns of accidental releases. The WHHAN covid theory/accidental leak manner of transmission doesn't match any other lab leak I could find, corroborating your analysis. Thank you for setting this all out in one piece.
Thank you for laying out this evidence so clearly. Until further actual evidence is provided that leads to different conclusions this sounds like the best we have so far.
This was really good (thank you!), but an even more exhaustive discussion of the arguments and data occurred during the 17 hr Rootclaim debate, summarized brilliantly in the link below. Conclusion by the two judges picked by each debate side was the same as yours...Zoonosis is overwhelmingly more likely than a lab leak. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim
Great start to covid history; look forward to more. Thanks for running through the arguments for lab-leak that never seemed strong enough to review; and you have saved me the trouble. Is there really no stronger argument for it? Wet markets were identified as issue in 2003 for China. They were to be stopped but re-started. (And now continue?) A different type of commercial determinant of health?
Great piece. One of the frustrating things about "we've never seen this before in nature" is that in order to see it in nature, you have to actually look. And disease surveillance in animals has always been woefully underfunded, and my god, bats alone harbor so. many. viruses. So the work is underfunded, and I think the work is really, really hard. How many bats from a cave do you need to sample to feel like you've got a good representation of the cave's virome?
This is an excellent piece. Thank you. I will save it for the future.
The basic point is that there is a ton of evidence favoring a natural spillover event and none at all supporting the other hypotheses.
I would not have justified the scenarios with the word theory. I would have called them hypotheses. A theory is a system that is supported by multiple lines of evidence. The conspiracy theories described above have no supporting evidence, only lots of hand waving.
For all those who liked my post- thank you! And thank you to Health Nerd for allowing me the forum to post. For anyone interested, I write a weekly column on these and similar issues for the American Council on Science and Health, posted at thttps://www.acsh.org/profile/barbara-pfeffer-billauer-jd-ma-occ-health-phd. HOpe to see you there.
Very commendable work, great summary! To be frank, when I saw the revised CDC page with the picture, I almost lost my laptop. There's no question about the political attempt to give a rosy retrospective. Maybe we should could just call it political revisionism.
Many thanks for taking on the currently very thankless task of calling out the revisionist history of COVID that is going on, I look forward to more in this series!
Great job! Regardless of the origin, the world did an extremely poor job of mitigating the spread of the virus and communication to health officials and the public, especially in the United States.
And here are free-access excerpts of my book, where I tell the inside story of the search for the origin of COVID-19 and the many manipulations surrounding it.
I wrote a piece for the Harvard Petrie Bill of Health detailing the conventional spread patterns of accidental releases. The WHHAN covid theory/accidental leak manner of transmission doesn't match any other lab leak I could find, corroborating your analysis. Thank you for setting this all out in one piece.
Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD MA PHD
Thank you for laying out this evidence so clearly. Until further actual evidence is provided that leads to different conclusions this sounds like the best we have so far.
This was really good (thank you!), but an even more exhaustive discussion of the arguments and data occurred during the 17 hr Rootclaim debate, summarized brilliantly in the link below. Conclusion by the two judges picked by each debate side was the same as yours...Zoonosis is overwhelmingly more likely than a lab leak. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim
Great start to covid history; look forward to more. Thanks for running through the arguments for lab-leak that never seemed strong enough to review; and you have saved me the trouble. Is there really no stronger argument for it? Wet markets were identified as issue in 2003 for China. They were to be stopped but re-started. (And now continue?) A different type of commercial determinant of health?
Great piece. One of the frustrating things about "we've never seen this before in nature" is that in order to see it in nature, you have to actually look. And disease surveillance in animals has always been woefully underfunded, and my god, bats alone harbor so. many. viruses. So the work is underfunded, and I think the work is really, really hard. How many bats from a cave do you need to sample to feel like you've got a good representation of the cave's virome?
This is an excellent piece. Thank you. I will save it for the future.
The basic point is that there is a ton of evidence favoring a natural spillover event and none at all supporting the other hypotheses.
I would not have justified the scenarios with the word theory. I would have called them hypotheses. A theory is a system that is supported by multiple lines of evidence. The conspiracy theories described above have no supporting evidence, only lots of hand waving.
For all those who liked my post- thank you! And thank you to Health Nerd for allowing me the forum to post. For anyone interested, I write a weekly column on these and similar issues for the American Council on Science and Health, posted at thttps://www.acsh.org/profile/barbara-pfeffer-billauer-jd-ma-occ-health-phd. HOpe to see you there.
Very commendable work, great summary! To be frank, when I saw the revised CDC page with the picture, I almost lost my laptop. There's no question about the political attempt to give a rosy retrospective. Maybe we should could just call it political revisionism.
I would add that those in public health been warning about the wet/wild animal markets for a quite some time in a recent post. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01690-z
As for the origin, think this a good NEJM perspective piece. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2305081
Many thanks for taking on the currently very thankless task of calling out the revisionist history of COVID that is going on, I look forward to more in this series!
Great job! Regardless of the origin, the world did an extremely poor job of mitigating the spread of the virus and communication to health officials and the public, especially in the United States.
Excellent article. Thank you.
As you might have seen, I have written extensively about this topic.
So I can provide some extensive resources for further reading; if anybody really wants to understand what we know about this topic.
Here are two articles laying out the totality of evidence:
https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/natures-neglected-gof-laboratory
https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/treacherous-ancestry
And here are free-access excerpts of my book, where I tell the inside story of the search for the origin of COVID-19 and the many manipulations surrounding it.
Inside Wuhan during the outbreak:
https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/exclusive-the-inside-story-behind
Inside the WHO mission to Wuhan (2021):
https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/exclusive-inside-the-who-mission
Book will come in English soon; had my US publisher get cold feet after Trump won the election.
Also, what new disease? https://jowaller.substack.com/p/seeing-is-believing
Initial 'samples' of 'covid'? Pray tell us where these were seen other than in computers. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/x-ray-crystallography-and-3d-computer?utm_source=publication-search
My response to the WHO on their lab leak feedback:
https://jimhaslam.substack.com/p/a-response-to-the-world-health-organization
This is great! Clear points that make sense. Thank you!