# A theory I saw about how COVID may have escaped from the Wuhan lab **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [February 17, 2021, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082 "2021-02-17T03:49:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/202 "2021-03-03T14:56:47Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > If we consider that most people in a lab actually _don’t_ collect or handle living samples (probably in the low double digits), then the lab’s potential to contribute seems much lower. Certainly much lower compared to the space of hunters, farmers, zoo workers, wet-market butchers, and any number of other people in that area who cross paths with those animals. As a separate matter, here you are not taking into account the fact that workers may well have been taking samples from sick _humans_ and bringing them to Wuhan for analysis. So the virus may have crossed to any one of the hunters, farmers, zoo workers, wet-market butchers and any number of other people - who then got sick with a suspicious unkown virus (such as in Yunnan, discussed above). And the fact that they got sick motivated a lab worker to come and take a sample and bring it to Wuhan for analysis. That greatly increases the probability that someone associated with Wuhan might have been exposed, even if they were not the first person the virus crossed to from an animal. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/203 "2021-03-03T15:09:42Z")
> [@Tfletch1](#): > > However, they are much less likely to catch a coronavirus than a farm worker, wet-market butcher, or zoo worker because they would be taking precautions in collection. Is the person taking the sample less likely to catch a coronavirus than a random person who is not taking a sample at all, and who never comes near the infected person? Why are we prioritizing vaccinating hospital workers in the U.S.? > [@Tfletch1](#): > > I think people are not appreciating how many coronaviruses are out there in many different species of mammals. So what? Given that we know this particular virus _did_ spread to a human, how does this affect the probability of which human it spread to? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/204 "2021-03-03T15:19:11Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I like the fact that we’re starting to rule out the more dramatic scenarios (engineered viruses, a failure of sophisticated lab protocols). The engineered virus scenario is dramatic and highly unlikely given what we currently know. The failure of lab protocols however should not be placed on that same level seeing as we do know that the lab in question had serious concerns raised about it. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > If we consider that animals don’t advertise what viruses they harbor, then we can also conclude that there’s no reason a lab tech who collects specimens of bats or pangolins should be at any special risk to harvest Sars-Cov-2 as opposed to any of the thousands of other viruses that circulate out there, even if they were specifically looking for that virus. I’m not convinced by that line of reasoning. The lab techs are _actively_ seeking out potentially concerning viruses. Even with whatever protective measures they put in place that elevates their individual risk of virus interaction somewhat. Would it surprise us at all if we heard about a lab tech, purposefully seeking out and collecting virus samples, becoming infected? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/205 "2021-03-03T15:35:32Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Nope, you still don’t understand how to think about probabilities. I’m outright ignoring your hijacks on Bayesian probability given that you seem to be creating toy scenarios with assumptions skewed to make the correlations look significant, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/206 "2021-03-03T15:38:08Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I’m outright ignoring your hijacks on Bayesian probability given that you seem to be creating toy scenarios with assumptions skewed to make the correlations look significant, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Sorry. As I said earlier, Bayesian probability is just putting numbers on common sense. Your persistent resistance to the idea that the occurrence of the first outbreak in Wuhan is probabilistically significant is not principally a failure of mathematics, it is a failure of common sense. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/207 "2021-03-03T15:42:16Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The failure of lab protocols however should not be placed on that same level seeing as we do know that the lab in question had serious concerns raised about it. Not just a failure of lab protocols. 1. The lab happened by chance upon Sars-Cov-2 in the wild. 2. A lab protocol failed. 3. The lab protocol resulted in the release of a virus. 4. The release of a virus caused an infection. 5. The infection was spread to the surrounding community. All those things had to happen. vs: 1. A wet-market butcher in a public space with zero safety protocols infected others in the area. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The lab techs are _actively_ seeking out potentially concerning viruses. Even with whatever protective measures they put in place that elevates their individual risk of virus interaction somewhat. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m not convinced by that line of reasoning. The lab techs are _actively_ seeking out potentially concerning viruses. Yes, but animals don’t wear signs around their necks advertising what sort of viruses they carry. Given that fact, why would a lab tech collecting pangolins be more likely to collect a specific type of pangolin virus than a pangolin-collecting wet-market butcher? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/208 "2021-03-03T15:49:32Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > As I said earlier, Bayesian probability is just putting numbers on common sense. Yes, and it is what you’re calling “common sense” that I take issue with. Not the existence of the Bayes theorem. > [@Riemann](#): > > Your persistent resistance to the idea that the occurrence of the first outbreak in Wuhan is probabilistically significant is not principally a failure of mathematics, it is a failure of common sense. You know, Gary Condit was on the House Intelligence committee at the time that 9/11 happened and conveniently diverted all the news coverage to that event. Does the fact that he was on that committee make it somewhat more likely that someone in the US government purposely suppressed information that made the 9/11 attacks possible? A conditional probability analysis would probably show that yes, the fact that Condit was on the house intelligence committee does raise the probability that he had a hand in the outcome. Without running those numbers, I suspect they’d turn out to be negligibly small. That’s my ongoing position about the Wuhan lab release. If we had real numbers to plug into these outcomes, we’d come up with a probability that’s borderline negligible if not outright meaningless. Instead we plug inflated assumptions into our toy problems because we know, we just know, those sneaky incompetent Chinese must have had a hand in releasing a deadly virus in their own country. In other worse, the furtiveness fallacy and the proportionality fallacy at work. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/209 "2021-03-03T16:01:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Not just a failure of lab protocols. You specifically lumped a failure of lab protocols in with more outlandish ideas and I’m telling you that it doesn’t belong on that level. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/210 "2021-03-03T16:02:36Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > those sneaky incompetent Chinese Well, this is an unambiguous sign that you have nothing worthwhile to contribute in a good faith discussion of the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/211 "2021-03-03T16:29:11Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Well, this is an unambiguous sign that you have nothing worthwhile to contribute in a good faith discussion of the evidence. And now that you’ve contrived a thinly plausible offramp to avoid responding to me, I hope you won’t let it go to waste. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/212 "2021-03-03T16:32:28Z")
Did you imagine that your imputation of racist motivation would be something I’d feel the need to defend myself against? As far as the evidence goes, you haven’t made any new point in your last dozen posts, and you’ve just persistently ignored the rebuttals that explain extensively and carefully why you can’t just ignore and dismiss the fact the outbreak occurred in Wuhan. If you have any new facts or evidence to add, I’m very much open minded to hear more. But you clearly don’t have any grasp of probability, either technically or intuitively, so there’s little point going over that ground repeatedly if you refuse to take on board the explanations that have been offered. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/213 "2021-03-03T16:39:04Z")
Its actually less of an insane conspiracy theory than it sounds at first. But it still is [very likely untrue](https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n428). > “All the work that has been done on the virus and trying to identify its origin continues to point toward a natural reservoir,” he added. “It’s very unlikely that anything could escape from that place,” said Embarek of the virology laboratory, which his team briefly visited. > > “Accidents do happen,” he conceded, but he said that the viruses kept in the Wuhan laboratory, and other similar laboratories elsewhere, were genetically too different from the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be its likely progenitors. “There had been no publication or research of this virus or one close to this virus, anywhere in the world,” he said. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/214 "2021-03-03T16:39:11Z")
There’s that offramp again. Feel free to take it. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/215 "2021-03-03T16:42:39Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > the viruses kept in the Wuhan laboratory, and other similar laboratories elsewhere, were genetically too different from the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be its likely progenitors. Read the thread. Nobody thinks that recombination between progenitor strains held in the Wuhan lab is the most likely way that the Wuhan lab might have been implicated in the outbreak. And there are ways that workers collecting samples in the field could create the causal connection to Wuhan without the virus ever escaping from the lab. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/216 "2021-03-03T16:43:49Z")
nm… ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/217 "2021-03-03T16:58:01Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > You specifically lumped a failure of lab protocols in with more outlandish ideas and I’m telling you that it doesn’t belong on that level. What do you find outlandish regarding what I posted? I enumerated a list of everything that needs to happen _before_ the lab could accidentally release Sars-Cov-2. If you look at that necessary chain of events and find them “outlandish,” then you agree with the point I’m making. The lab release of Sars-Cov-2 requires an outlandishly improbable chain of events to occur. If we remove steps from the chain to reduce the outlandishness from the lab worker scenario, then it begins to take the shape of “an animal-collection worker caused someone to be exposed to the virus.” In that light, the wet-market scenario has the same contours as the lab-release scenario, except that the lab has safety protocols. If the lab disregarded all its precautions while handling a dangerous pathogen, then it’s essentially the same as the wet market, but there’s no evidence of that being the case. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/218 "2021-03-03T17:17:28Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > those sneaky incompetent Chinese must have had a hand in releasing a deadly virus in their own country. That is very much _not_ the position being taken here. You are falling into the same trap as many others by hearing “definite cause” when all that is being stated is “possible cause”. As for blanket incompetency? The fact it is China is irrelevant. The fact that that very lab has been flagged as problematic _is_ relevant. The fact that the government in China is purposefully secretive and unhelpful is both relevant and a matter of obvious fact. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/219 "2021-03-03T17:23:11Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > What do you find outlandish regarding what I posted? You said… > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I like the fact that we’re starting to rule out the more dramatic scenarios (engineered viruses, a failure of sophisticated lab protocols) Whereby you place an engineered virus on an equal billing with a failure of the lab protocols. The former has been shown, to high degree of certainty not to be the case. The latter, as a matter of prior record, has been raised as a specific risk _for this very lab_. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/220 "2021-03-03T18:49:28Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Is the person taking the sample less likely to catch a coronavirus than a random person who is not taking a sample at all, and who never comes near the infected person? Why are we prioritizing vaccinating hospital workers in the U.S.? They wear PPE. Even if you find lapses in safety, they’re probably more likely to be wearing the appropriate PPE than some dude butchering wild animals in a wet market or people hiking for fun. That’s the whole point of PPE. And remember, there is no evidence that it spreads from bats straight to humans. This particular lab has been mainly studying the origins in bats. Once, they get the samples, they usually add things to extract the RNA so they rarely work with the virus anyway. According to them. So if you think they’re lying then, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/221 "2021-03-03T18:56:47Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Whereby you place an engineered virus on an equal billing with a failure of the lab protocols. > > The former has been shown, to high degree of certainty not to be the case. > > The latter, as a matter of prior record, has been raised as a specific risk _for this very lab_ . If we’re talking about the escape of a hybridized virus from a living specimen, I’d refer you to my above comments about the sequence of improbable events necessary for that to take place. If we’re talking about a safety lapse in sample collection, I’d refer you to my question about how a lab tech collecting bats who missed a safety item is of plausibly higher risk than a wet-market supplier who takes _zero_ precautions at all, and presumably there are a lot more wet-marketeers and patrons than there are level 4 virology labs. Whichever way folks try to massage it, we end up in one of 2 places: either the unlikely event of a containment failure of a lab, or lab personnel in the field engaged in animal collection, just as wet-market vendors do. As to prior reports of concerns at the lab, I take those with a grain of salt. The reporters in that case weren’t any sort of regulatory body, it was just a couple of American diplomats. We can’t overlook that the US have had an axe to grind with China since the beginning of the Trump administration. When the pandemic started blowing up in the US, they started pushing this narrative nonstop. So that somewhat taints the neutrality of whatever they were reporting. You don’t need to take my word for it. Here is what the WHO had to say about it: [(cite)](https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n428) > [@](#): > > A team of scientists sent to Wuhan, China, by the World Health Organization to investigate the origins of the covid-19 pandemic has effectively ruled out the hypothesis of a viral escape from the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology. > > It was “extremely unlikely” that the laboratory’s work was behind the outbreak that struck the city at the end of 2019, said Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish food safety and animal disease specialist who chaired the investigation team. “It isn’t a hypothesis we suggest implies further study.” I mean, “ruled out the hypothesis of a viral escape” is a pretty strong statement. Why do we seem to think we’re smarter than the WHO? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=12)