CLINICAL MATTERS
Conspiracy theorists went into overdrive anew when several mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, published stories suggesting that the SARS-CoV-2 virus might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Anti-China rhetoric went into overdrive and accusations of cover-ups flew thick and fast.
The newspapers reported that FBI director Christopher Wray believed that Covid-19 most likely originated from a potential laboratory incident in Wuhan, China. This statement is much stronger compared to the assessment of the other institutions in the US intelligence view the laboratory origins of SARS-CoV-2 with “low confidence” or are undecided due to the difficulty in collecting proper evidence and reliable information. The bottom line is that there is very little certainty among these intelligence agencies given the lack of information, and Wray’s assessment does not seem to be supported by any publicly available evidence.
Despite being assessed by the World Health Organization as being extremely unlikely, the laboratory leak theory has refused to go away. The perceived lack of cooperation and transparency by the Chinese government has kept that fire burning. When the whole genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was made available to the public in early 2020, scientists analyzed the sequences and concluded that the virus evolved naturally. They analyzed multiple SARS-CoV-2 genes and compared these to animal coronaviruses. The mutations that enabled the virus to jump from animal hosts to humans could be explained by natural processes. There is no evidence that any part of the virus was purposely manipulated as a biological weapon.
SARS-CoV-2 is not an engineered bioterrorism weapon. That much is certain, and even the US Intelligence agencies agree on this assessment. The question of whether it originated from the community or escaped containment in a laboratory that was studying it, however, has been repeatedly brought up. Protocols in biosafety laboratories are extremely strict and personnel are highly trained. It is much less likely for any kind of deadly pathogen to escape from a high-level government biosecurity laboratory compared to a regular laboratory, given the many redundant layers of protection. Our own Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility at the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health uses multiple airlocks with air flow mapping and strict PPE protocols. Therefore, the theory that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a Chinese government laboratory is much less likely than the possibility of transmission from a natural host.
A paper in the journal Science determined through genomic sequencing and serology that the most likely origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China. The fact that there were two founder viral lineages of SARS-CoV-2, namely A and B, point to at least two cross-species transmission events. Viral genetic material was also found in environmental samples where live wild animals were sold.
If this was a laboratory leak, there would have only been one clear and distinct founding lineage, and there would be no specific pattern of viral genetic material from the wild animal storage areas. Instead, it would have been spread randomly if the transmission event came from outside the market.
Many wild animals are known to harbor non-human coronaviruses and these can leap from animal to human hosts when it comes across a serendipitous mutation. In close quarters and in areas where wild animals are kept in cages in proximity with people, the likelihood of cross-species transmission is significantly increased. Coronaviruses are RNA viruses that are prone to mutation, and this explains the many sublineages of SARS-CoV-2 that emerged as the pandemic progressed. In fact, there have been many documented instances where SARS-CoV-2 leapt back from humans to animals with documented infections in cats, dogs, zoo animals, and minks on a farm.
There is already a previous event demonstrating coronavirus crossover from an animal species to humans occurring in a market setting. The SARS outbreak in 2003 was initially traced to palm civets from a live animal market in Shenzen. Several animal species were also infected. The virus that was found in the palm civets was genetically very closely related to viruses isolated from horseshoe bats in the nearby wilderness areas. Bats are the likely natural reservoirs of coronaviruses. In this case, palm civets, which are highly susceptible to SARS, were infected. When the animals were brough to market, the virus was passed on to other animal hosts and eventually to humans. SARS-CoV-2, being in the same species as SARS, could very plausibly have been transmitted in the same way. There is, however, still no definitively implicated intermediate animal host perhaps because those animals were already sold and consumed for food.
All reasonable scientific evidence points to a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. So why do all these conspiracy theories survive? The reasons are complex, and the uncertainty is fueled by political one-upmanship. On one hand, China has not been completely transparent with WHO investigators. It has reportedly been reluctant to cooperate with in-depth examinations. On the other hand, there has been a rush from Western countries to accuse and condemn China of trying to suppress information and control the narrative by downplaying their numbers, even as these same countries try to deflect the blame for their disastrous handling of their own pandemic response.
Whatever the reasons, it is these back-and-forth accusations that are causing the public to lose trust and seek alternative explanations for something that is otherwise fairly straightforward.
Fake news and unfounded allegations have fueled a parallel pandemic of misinformation throughout the last three years. This misinformation has caused many deaths, especially among those who refused to be vaccinated and those who refused to believe that Covid-19 was real. They continued denying its existence even as they gasped for breath in their hospital beds. Viruses are already deadly enough on their own and they do not need any help from us to cause suffering and death. Unfortunately, there will always be those who are willing to believe charlatans and agents of misinformation, especially if it suits their purposes.