[D66] Wall Street Journal onderzoekt ontstaan Covid-19 (Wuhan Coronavirus 2019-nCoV #675)

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Bron:   Wall Street Journal
Datum:  23 mei 2021
Auteur: Michael R. Gordon <michael.gordon at wsj.com>, Warren P. Strobel
         <Warren.Strobel at wsj.com>, Drew Hinshaw <drew.hinshaw at wsj.com>
URL:    
https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228


Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Report says researchers went to hospital in November 2019, shortly 
before confirmed outbreak; adds to calls for probe of whether virus 
escaped lab

WASHINGTON - Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology 
became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, 
according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that 
could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the 
Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, 
issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said 
that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of 
coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 'with 
symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.'
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-experts-visit-wuhan-institute-on-covid-19-mission-11612363996

The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their 
illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the 
World Health Organization's decision-making body, which is expected to 
discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19's origins.

Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the 
lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the 
supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was 
provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but 
still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.

Another person described the intelligence as stronger. 'The information 
that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It 
was very precise. What it didn't tell you was exactly why they got 
sick,' he said, referring to the researchers.

November 2019 is roughly when many epidemiologists and virologists 
believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began 
circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing says 
that the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.

The Wuhan Institute hasn't shared raw data, safety logs and lab records 
on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider 
the most likely source of the virus.

China has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped from one of its labs. 
On Sunday, China's foreign ministry cited a WHO-led team's conclusion, 
after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, in February, 
that a lab leak was extremely unlikely. 'The U.S. continues to hype the 
lab leak theory,' the foreign ministry said in response to a request for 
comment by The Wall Street Journal. 'Is it actually concerned about 
tracing the source or trying to divert attention?'

The Biden administration declined to comment on the intelligence but 
said that all technically credible theories on the origin of the 
pandemic should be investigated by the WHO and international experts. 
'We continue to have serious questions about the earliest days of the 
Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins within the People's Republic of 
China,' said a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. 'We're not 
going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the 
source of SARS-CoV-2,' the spokeswoman said. 'As a matter of policy we 
never comment on intelligence issues.'

Beijing has also asserted that the virus could have originated outside 
China, including at a lab at the Fort Detrick military base in Maryland, 
and called for the WHO to investigate early Covid outbreaks in other 
countries. Most scientists say they have seen nothing to corroborate the 
idea that the virus came from a U.S. military lab, and the White House 
has said there are no credible reasons to investigate it.

China's National Health Commission and the WIV didn't respond to 
requests for comment. Shi Zhengli, the top bat coronavirus expert at 
WIV, has said the virus didn't leak from her laboratories. She told the 
WHO-led team that traveled to Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the 
origins of the virus that all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 
antibodies and there had been no turnover of staff on the coronavirus 
team.

Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on that team told NBC News in March 
that some WIV staff did fall sick in the autumn of 2019, but she 
attributed that to regular, seasonal sickness. 'There were occasional 
illnesses because that's normal. There was nothing that stood out,' she 
said. 'Maybe one or two. It's certainly not a big, big thing.'

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. Covid-19 and the flu, while very different 
illnesses, share some of the same symptoms, such as fever, aches and a 
cough. Still, it could be significant if members of the same team 
working with coronaviruses went to hospital with similar symptoms 
shortly before the pandemic was first identified.

David Asher, a former U.S. official who led a State Department task 
force on the origins of the virus for then-Secretary of State Mike 
Pompeo, told a Hudson Institute seminar in March that he doubted that 
the lab researchers became sick because of the ordinary flu. 'I'm very 
doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level 
three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with 
influenza that put them in the hospital or in severe conditions all in 
the same week, and it didn't have anything to do with the coronavirus,' 
he said, adding that the researchers' illness may represent 'the first 
known cluster' of Covid-19 cases.

Long characterized by skeptics as a conspiracy theory, the hypothesis 
that the pandemic could have begun with a lab accident has attracted 
more interest from scientists who have complained about the lack of 
transparency by Chinese authorities or conclusive proof for the 
alternate hypothesis: that the virus was contracted by humans from a bat 
or other infected animal outside a lab. Many proponents of the lab 
hypothesis say that a virus that was carried by an infected bat might 
have been brought to the lab so that researchers could work on potential 
vaccines-only to escape.

While the lab hypothesis is being taken more seriously, including by 
Biden administration officials, the debate is still colored by political 
tensions, including over how much evidence is needed to sustain the 
hypothesis. The State Department fact sheet issued during the Trump 
administration, which drew on classified intelligence, said that 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 seasonal 
illnesses.'

The Jan. 15 fact sheet added that this fact 'raises questions about the 
credibility' of Dr. Shi and criticized Beijing for its 'deceit and 
disinformation' while acknowledging that the U.S. government hasn't 
determined exactly how the pandemic began.

The Biden administration hasn't disputed any of the assertions in the 
fact sheet, which current and former officials say was vetted by U.S. 
intelligence agencies. The fact sheet also covered research activities 
at the WIV, its alleged cooperation on some projects with the Chinese 
military and accidents at other Chinese labs. But one Biden 
administration official said that by highlighting data that pointed to 
the lab leak hypothesis, Trump administration officials had sought 'to 
put spin on the ball.' Several U.S. officials described the intelligence 
as 'circumstantial,' worthy of further exploration but not conclusive on 
its own.

Asked about the Jan. 15 statement, State Department spokesman Ned Price 
said: 'A fact sheet issued by the previous administration on January 15 
did not draw any conclusions regarding the origins of the coronavirus. 
Rather, it focused on the lack of transparency surrounding the origins.'

Though the first known case was Dec. 8, several analyses of the virus's 
rate of mutation concluded that it likely began spreading several weeks 
earlier.

The WHO-led team that visited Wuhan concluded in a joint report with 
Chinese experts in March that the virus most likely spread from bats to 
humans via another animal, and that a laboratory leak was 'extremely 
unlikely.' However, team members said they didn't view raw data or 
original lab, safety and other records. On the same day the report came 
out, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team hadn't 
adequately examined the lab leak hypothesis, and called for a fuller 
probe of the idea.

The U.S., European Union and several other governments have also called 
for a more transparent investigation of Covid-19's origins, without 
explicitly demanding a lab probe. They have called in particular for 
better access to data and samples from potential early Covid-19 cases.

Members of the WHO-led team said Chinese counterparts had identified 92 
potential Covid-19 cases among some 76,000 people who fell sick between 
October and early December 2019, but turned down requests to share raw 
data on the larger group. That data would help the WHO-led team 
understand why China sought to only test those 92 people for antibodies.

Team members also said they asked for access to a Wuhan blood bank to 
test samples from before December 2019 for antibodies. Chinese 
authorities declined at first, citing privacy concerns, then agreed, but 
have yet to provide that access, team members say.

--------
(c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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Bron:   Wall Street Journal
Datum:  24 en 25 mei 2021
Auteur: Jeremy Page <jeremy.page at wsj.com>, Betsy McKay
         <betsy.mckay+1 at wsj.com>, Drew Hinshaw <drew.hinshaw at wsj.com>
URL:    
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wuhan-lab-leak-question-chinese-mine-covid-pandemic-11621871125


The Wuhan Lab Leak Question: A Disused Chinese Mine Takes Center Stage
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It isn't the predominant hypothesis for Covid's origins, yet prominent 
scientists are calling for a deeper probe and clearer answers from 
Beijing

DANAOSHAN, China-On the outskirts of a village deep in the mountains of 
southwest China, a lone surveillance camera peers down toward a disused 
copper mine smothered in dense bamboo. As night approaches, bats swoop 
overhead. This is the subterranean home of the closest known virus on 
Earth to the one that causes Covid-19. It is also now a touchpoint for 
escalating calls for a more thorough probe into whether the pandemic 
could have stemmed from a Chinese laboratory. In April 2012, six miners 
here fell sick with a mysterious illness after entering the mine to 
clear bat guano. Three of them died.

Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were called in 
to investigate and, after taking samples from bats in the mine, 
identified several new coronaviruses. Now, unanswered questions about 
the miners' illness, the viruses found at the site and the research done 
with them have elevated into the mainstream an idea once dismissed as a 
conspiracy theory: that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, 
might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the city where the first cases 
were found in December 2019.

The lab researchers thus far haven't provided full and prompt answers, 
and there have been discrepancies in some information they have 
released. That has led to demands by leading scientists for a deeper 
investigation into the Wuhan institute and whether the pandemic virus 
could have been in its labs and escaped.

Even some senior public-health officials who consider that possibility 
improbable now back the idea of a fuller probe. They say a World Health 
Organization-led team had insufficient access in Wuhan earlier this year 
to reach its conclusion that a lab leak was 'extremely unlikely.'

Most of those calling for a fuller examination of the lab hypothesis say 
they aren't backing it over the main alternative-that the virus spread 
from animals to humans outside a lab, in the kind of natural spillover 
that has become more frequent in recent decades. There isn't yet enough 
evidence for either idea, they say, nor are the two incompatible. The 
virus could have been one of natural origin that was brought back to a 
laboratory in Wuhan-intentionally or accidentally-and escaped.

A growing number, however, including the director-general of the WHO and 
a prominent U.S. researcher who has worked with the Wuhan Institute of 
Virology, agree that the WIV needs to provide more information about its 
work to categorically rule out a lab spill.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that three WIV researchers 
became ill enough in November 2019 that they sought local hospital care, 
according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report, though 
officials expressed differing views over the strength of the evidence. 
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday the information came from 
a foreign entity, and that the U.S. needed additional information to 
independently verify it. In January, the State Department had said that 
several WIV researchers became sick in autumn 2019 'with symptoms 
consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.'

The Biden administration has recommended to the WHO that it lead a 
fuller investigation into the possibility of a lab leak, backing a call 
by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has offered to 
deploy specialists. An investigation should include other laboratories 
in Wuhan, not just the WIV, and the team conducting it should include 
laboratory safety experts, according to a U.S. health official. 'We 
should be able to look at biosafety records and interview staff 
members,' the official said.

The matter is likely to be discussed during a meeting of the WHO's 
decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, which started Monday. 
Diplomatic support for a lab investigation is thin. Few governments are 
eager to champion a probe that China could easily veto.

Beijing would be sure to resist any such effort and has tightly 
controlled access to information thus far. It denies that SARS-CoV-2 
came from one of its labs or infected any WIV staff, and it wants the 
WHO to investigate whether the pandemic began outside Chinese borders. 
'The U.S. keeps concocting inconsistent claims and clamoring to 
investigate labs in Wuhan,' China's foreign ministry said in a written 
statement. 'This fully shows that some people in the U.S. don't care 
about facts and truth.' It cited the WHO-led team's verdict on the 
implausibility of a lab leak and urged Washington to invite the WHO to 
investigate early U.S. cases.

China's National Health Commission and the WIV didn't respond to 
requests for comment.


Hidden mine

Chinese authorities have obstructed independent efforts to investigate 
the mine, setting up a checkpoint nearby where unidentified men stopped 
several foreign journalists in recent weeks, on one occasion warning 
there were wild elephants ahead. A Journal reporter reached the mine by 
mountain bike but was later detained and questioned for about five hours 
by police, who deleted a cellphone photograph of the mine. Villagers 
told the reporter that local officials had warned them not to discuss 
the mine with outsiders. There was no sign of nearby villages being 
evacuated or any recent research activity at the mine. It was so 
overgrown that its entrance appeared to be inaccessible.

A growing number of virologists, biologists and other leading scientists 
are calling for a closer examination of the lab hypothesis.

Asked in a May 11 Senate hearing whether he thought the Covid-19 virus 
might have escaped from a Wuhan lab, Anthony Fauci, President Biden's 
chief medical adviser, said, 'That possibility certainly exists, and I 
am totally in favor of a full investigation of whether that could have 
happened.' Dr. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy 
and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, which has funded coronavirus research 
conducted with the WIV. He has said previously that the Covid-19 virus 
mostly likely evolved and jumped to humans in nature.

Last year, 27 scientists signed an open letter condemning 'conspiracy 
theories' suggesting that Covid-19 didn't have a natural origin. Now, 
three of them since contacted by the Journal say that on further 
reflection a laboratory accident is plausible enough to merit 
consideration. Others continue to deem it too unlikely to justify 
investigation.

'I'm convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to a 
lab, they started to work with it...and some sloppy individual brought 
it out,' said Bernard Roizman, a University of Chicago virologist and 
one of the signers. 'They can't admit they did something so stupid.'

A small group of academics and internet sleuths have been working 
together for months, using social media to collate and publish evidence 
of the WIV's activities, especially in relation to the mine. They have 
called in three open letters since March for a fuller probe of the lab 
hypothesis.

On May 13, a group of 18 scientists from universities including Harvard, 
Stanford and Yale published an open letter in the academic journal 
Science calling for serious consideration of the lab hypothesis and 
urging research laboratories to open their records.

Among the signatories to the Science letter was Ralph Baric, a 
microbiologist at the University of North Carolina who worked with the 
WIV on a study to create an artificial coronavirus that infected human 
cells in the lab. In an email, he said SARS-CoV-2's genetic structure 
suggests it originated in wildlife and evolved naturally to infect 
humans, and that he believes that is the most likely scenario, but 'more 
investigation and transparency are necessary to define the origin of the 
pandemic. 'A rigorous investigation would have reviewed the biosafety 
level under which bat coronavirus research was conducted at WIV,' he 
said. 'It would have included detailed information on the training 
procedures with records, the safety procedures with records and 
strategies that were in place to prevent inadvertent or accidental 
escape.'

The shift among leading scientists is partly due to conflicting 
statements from Chinese researchers. Some scientists say another factor 
has been a toning down of U.S. government rhetoric on the subject in 
recent months.

The WHO-led team that visited Wuhan early this year concluded in a joint 
report with Chinese experts in March that Covid-19 most likely moved 
from bats to humans, via another mammal, and ranked a laboratory leak at 
the bottom of its list. The team, which spent three hours at the 
institute, had little to go on beyond assurances from the institute's 
own staff, team members say. On the same day the report was released, 
Dr. Tedros said the team hadn't adequately explored a potential lab 
origin.

The U.S., European Union and several other governments responded to the 
report by appealing for a more robust, transparent investigation into 
the pandemic's origins, without calling publicly for a full inquiry into 
the lab hypothesis. Some scientists question why the WHO-led team, which 
has sought to investigate clues to the pandemic's origins in other 
countries such as Italy, hasn't been able to arrange antibody tests and 
surveys of people and animals around the overgrown mine that held the 
virus most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. The team has recommended such 
research, but the 'timeline is still, still not clear,' said Peter Ben 
Embarek, the food-safety scientist who led the team. 'Ideally, starting 
soon.'


Mysterious virus

The most detailed account of the miners' illness comes in a master's 
thesis by Li Xu from the No. 1 School of Clinical Medicine at Kunming 
Medical University in southwest China. He didn't respond to requests for 
comment. His thesis, supervised by the hospital's emergency chief at the 
time, describes how a 42-year-old man surnamed Lu was admitted there on 
April 25, 2012. Mr. Lu had been clearing bat guano at the mine, in 
China's Mojiang region, since April 2 and had suffered from a fever and 
cough for two weeks. For the previous three days, he had trouble 
breathing and had begun coughing up rust-color mucus spotted with blood.

A CT scan revealed severe pneumonia, with the same lung markings now 
seen in many Covid-19 patients. Still, blood and other tests couldn't 
pinpoint the cause. Over the next week, five others working at the 
Mojiang mine, ages 30 to 63, were admitted to the same hospital. All had 
similar symptoms. Doctors consulted experts in respiratory disease, 
including Zhong Nanshan, who had led the fight against China's 2002 and 
2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Dr. Zhong 
diagnosed pneumonia, most likely caused by a virus, and recommended 
testing for SARS antibodies and trying to identify the type of bats in 
the mine. He didn't respond to a request for comment.

Another thesis, written by a Ph.D. candidate supervised by George Gao, 
the current head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and 
Prevention, or China CDC, said four of the miners tested positive for 
SARS antibodies. The hospital contacted experts from several other 
institutions, including the WIV. None could identify what caused the 
miners' illness. By mid-August 2012, three of them were dead. The 
suspicion was that it was a bat-borne SARS-like coronavirus, according 
to Mr. Li's thesis. Chinese scientists, who were still searching for the 
origins of SARS, knew that bat caves in the area were a potential 
source, and they had been collecting samples from them.

Over the next year or so, WIV scientists entered the Mojiang mine and 
took fecal samples from 276 bats, identifying six different species, 
according to a research paper they published later. They extracted 
genetic material from the samples and sequenced fragments. Half of the 
samples tested positive for coronaviruses, including an unidentified 
strain of a SARS-like one, according to the scientists. They called the 
virus RaBtCoV/4991.

Critically, all six bat species showed evidence of coronavirus 
co-infection, the researchers found. In other words, the virus could 
easily exchange genetic material with similar ones to create a new 
coronavirus-an environment ripe for the creation of new viruses that 
could potentially infect humans. That research was led by Shi Zhengli, 
the WIV's leading bat coronavirus expert. When the results were 
published in 2016 in the journal Virologica Sinica, few scientists paid 
attention to RaBtCoV/4991. It didn't appear to be closely related to 
SARS. It came from an abandoned mineshaft, said the paper, which made no 
mention of the miners who fell sick there.

Only after the Covid-19 pandemic began did it become more significant. 
In February 2020, Dr. Shi and her colleagues published a paper in the 
scientific journal, Nature, revealing the existence of a virus called 
RaTG13. Sequencing had revealed it was 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2 
genetically, making it the closest known relative to the pandemic virus. 
They said it was found in a bat in Yunnan, the Chinese province that 
includes the Mojiang region mine, but didn't say when or where. That 
revelation was considered a breakthrough in the search for Covid-19's 
source, strongly indicating that it originated in bats.


Striking similarities

In the following weeks, however, some scientists outside China noticed 
striking similarities in the sampling dates and partial genetic 
sequences of the virus called RaTG13 and the one called RaBtCoV/4991, 
which Dr. Shi's team had found in the Mojiang mine. After repeated 
requests by scientists to clarify the issue, Dr. Shi said that the two 
viruses were one and the same. She updated her paper in Nature in 
November to reflect that and include details about the sick miners. The 
virus had been renamed to reflect the bat species, its location, and the 
sampling year, she said.

She also revealed that the WIV retested samples from the miners and 
established that they weren't infected with SARS-CoV-2. And she 
disclosed that her team subsequently had found eight other SARS-type 
coronaviruses in the mine.

On Friday, after repeated requests from scientists to share the genetic 
sequences of the viruses, Dr. Shi and colleagues released a scientific 
paper on a preprint server, meaning that it has yet to be peer-reviewed. 
The paper said the eight were almost identical to each other and only 
77.6% similar to SARS-CoV-2, although one part of their genetic code was 
a 97.2% match. 'Albeit there is a speculation claiming the possible 
leaking of RaTG13 from lab that caused SARS-CoV-2, the experiment 
evidence cannot support it,' the paper said.

Many scientists question why the WIV didn't announce the existence of 
those viruses earlier, as well as their connection to the mine, and why 
they waited so long to allow scientists to examine their sequences. Such 
information about the types of coronaviruses that were circulating is 
critical in the search for the pandemic's origins, they say. Some have 
noted that Dr. Shi has repeatedly asserted that the Mojiang miners had a 
suspected fungal infection, not a virus, contradicting research papers 
at the time and Dr. Shi's update in Nature, which said the miners were 
thought to have a virus.

Dr. Shi didn't respond to requests for comment.

Many scientists are eager to examine the WIV's once publicly available 
database of some 22,000 samples and virus sequences, including 15,000 
from bats. The database was taken offline in September 2019. Dr. Shi 
told the WHO-led team in February that the database was taken offline 
after being subjected to more than 3,000 cyberattacks.

The WHO-led team that visited didn't ask to view the data, according to 
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based 
nonprofit, who was on the team. The database included information the 
WIV had gathered through work with EcoHealth Alliance, which was funded 
by the NIAID and collaborated with the WIV to study coronaviruses in 
bats. Dr. Daszak said earlier this year that because of his 
organization's work with the WIV, 'we basically know' what viruses were 
in the database, and none was closer to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13.

Moreover, RaTG13 was genetically very distinct from SARS-CoV-2 and had 
never been successfully cultured in the lab, he and other scientists on 
the WHO-led team said. 'Of course we discussed it,' said Dr. Ben 
Embarek, the WHO team leader. 'From what we know, only a sequence 
exists. No virus. They never succeeded to culture a virus out of the bat 
feces sample.'

If the WIV had only the genetic sequence, it wouldn't have had an 
infectious RaTg13 virus that could have escaped from the lab. Having 
only the genetic sequence also raises questions about the extent to 
which it could have been used as the basis for experiments to create 
man-made viruses. Other scientists, however, say that cannot be 
independently verified without viewing the WIV's lab logs, sample 
records and viral database and that research papers show its employees 
were combining some bat coronaviruses they had cultured with genetic 
material from others.

Some are uncomfortable with Dr. Daszak's role in the WHO-led team, given 
his close relationship with the WIV and his stated rejection of the lab 
hypothesis since early last year. Dr. Daszak has said he provided a 
conflict of interest statement to the WHO when he applied to be on the 
team. The WHO has said it determined his work didn't pose a conflict.


Lab experiments

One area of controversy is the experiments the WIV was doing to 
construct new viruses by combining elements of existing bat 
coronaviruses to determine whether they could become more infectious to 
humans. Such experiments - sometimes described as 'gain-of-function' 
research - have long been controversial among scientists. Supporters say 
they are the best way to identify potential sources of future pandemics 
and to develop vaccines. Critics say the risk of harmful, genetically 
enhanced viruses leaking from a lab is too great. Scientists debate what 
types of experiments constitute gain-of-function research.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health paused funding gain-of-function 
research in 2014, and in 2017 introduced a system requiring an 
expert-panel review of any grant proposals involving gain-of-function 
experiments. China's restrictions were looser.

Some scientists say work described by Dr. Shi fits a broad definition of 
gain-of-function research. There are wide differences of opinion about 
where the boundaries are drawn. Dr. Shi has publicly described doing 
experiments, including in 2018 and 2019, to see if various bat 
coronaviruses could use a certain spike protein on their surfaces to 
bind to an enzyme in human cells known as ACE2. That is how both the 
SARS virus and SARS-CoV-2 infect humans.

Those experiments involved combining one bat coronavirus with the spike 
protein of another and then infecting mice genetically engineered to 
contain human ACE2, Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February, according 
to its report.

Dr. Daszak described similar work, conducted by Dr. Baric of UNC, in a 
podcast shortly before the pandemic began, saying the aim was to create 
a vaccine for SARS. EcoHealth Alliance described such experiments as one 
of the aims of its NIAID bat coronavirus research grant awarded in 2019. 
But the nonprofit, in accordance with the NIH moratorium, 'has not 
participated in nor funded gain-of-function research' and no 'in vivo' 
research was conducted on this grant, an EcoHealth Alliance spokesman 
said. The NIH suspended the grant in 2020. 'If the world wants to shut 
down work that was not gain-of-function because of a conspiracy theory, 
that's a huge mistake,' Dr. Daszak said earlier this year. 'This virus, 
it's extremely unlikely that it came from a lab. If we focus on the lab 
issue and ignore what really happened, we do so at our ultimate peril.'

One question now dividing the scientific community is whether such 
experiments could have created SARS-CoV-2, either accidentally or as 
part of a deliberate effort to see which viruses could evolve into ones 
dangerous to humans.

Many prominent scientists say that would be impossible with RaTG13, and 
that SARS-CoV-2 could only have been created out of a virus that was 
genetically closer to it. While the WIV has said RaTG13 is the closest 
relative it had to the pandemic virus, scientists calling for a lab 
investigation want access to the lab's records to verify that. 
Gain-of-function experiments would leave clear genetic signatures in 
sequences of the virus showing that part of it was inserted in a 
laboratory, many molecular biologists say. Other scientists say more 
modern techniques can leave no trace.

Ian Lipkin, an infectious-disease specialist at Columbia University who 
has worked closely with Chinese research partners, was among five 
scientists who last year co-wrote a paper dismissing the idea that the 
virus was manipulated in a lab. Now he says he is concerned that the WIV 
was doing experiments on coronaviruses in laboratories at a lower 
biosafety level than required in the U.S.

Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team that there had been no leaks and none of 
her team had tested positive for Covid-19. Several of Dr. Shi's foreign 
research partners have said they found her laboratories and work 
practices to be safe. 'Shi Zhengli runs a tight ship,' said Maureen 
Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University. 
'They are sharp, smart people. She was working to prevent exactly this 
kind of pandemic. She knows the seriousness of working with 
coronaviruses.'


Political interest

President Trump began pushing the lab hypothesis last year, but his 
administration didn't make any evidence public. Other governments that 
could have helped push for a lab investigation distanced themselves as 
Mr. Trump began to speak about it, said Andrew Bremberg, the U.S. 
ambassador to the WHO at the time. 'It was like an overnight shift,' he 
said. 'When the president first touched this, they shut down.'

A small band of scientists, connecting over Twitter, began to trade 
open-source research pointing to the lab. Australia, without openly 
backing the hypothesis, successfully lobbied for the WHO to assemble a 
team of scientists to investigate the origins of the virus in China.

The Biden administration hasn't said it believes there was a lab leak, 
only that the possibility needs to be more fully investigated.

Before the WHO-led team's visit to Wuhan, some of its members said they 
too were skeptical about the lab hypothesis. Such accidents are 
extremely rare compared with the number of spillovers from 
human-to-animal contact, they said, but they were open-minded. In the 
end, the team was unable to examine any of the Wuhan institute's safety 
logs or records of testing on its staff. Team members said afterward 
that they still saw the visit as a useful exercise.

Among those now calling for a fuller probe is James Le Duc, the retired 
director of the Galveston National Laboratory, one of the top U.S. 
biocontainment facilities, who helped train several of the WIV's senior 
safety specialists and building engineers. 'I think it's important to 
look closely at the laboratory conditions and explore what was being 
done where, and have a serious investigation,' said Dr. Le Duc. He finds 
the lab hypothesis somewhat less likely, he said, but 'the goal of all 
of this is to follow the science.'

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