# 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:** 23
**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 13, 2022, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/442 "2022-03-13T12:05:37Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And at the end of the day, it’s not terribly important which it was. I don’t disagree with the rest of your post but this, I think is catastrophically wrong. It matters _massively_ where it came from and the inability to conclusively pinpoint the source leaves us ill-prepared to avoid it in future and risks diverting finite resources and attention. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/443 "2022-03-13T12:10:32Z")
The next one will be different. Or, more likely, the next pandemic virus will also jump from animals, and infect humans due to people getting close to animals, either to eat them or for some other purpose. People are going to keep eating wild animals unless we drive them all extinct. People are going to continue to study dangerous diseases, too. I think the constructive thing to do is to try to come up with ways to make these activities safer. But again recognize that protocols fail, and there will be a next one. And directly prepare for that eventuality. ---
**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 13, 2022, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/444 "2022-03-13T12:37:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think the constructive thing to do is to try to come up with ways to make these activities safer. But again recognize that protocols fail, and there will be a next one. And directly prepare for that eventuality. In a world of finite resources it is impossible to address and improve all the ways in which such activities may fail. Attempting to do so will necessarily mean that the real root causes are not given the attention they deserve because we never bother to identify them in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/445 "2022-03-15T16:44:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I believe that several very similar viruses are endemic among bats that live nearby. In fact, the lab was collecting bat viruses. But a lot of those animals were collected near where the bats live, too > > An agglomeration of wild animals from all across the countryside is a natural place to encounter a novel virus. So is a lab that collects viruses. Both are obvious, natural places to investigate. My understanding is that having investigated both, there’s more data linking the outbreak to the market than to the lab. I not an expert on this, but I think this contradicts some of the discussion from several months back early in the thread. Genetic analysis can tell us with pretty good accuracy which progenitor viruses this novel strain descended from. It’s not a matter of “an agglomeration of wild animals” germs being put into a blender and spitting out COVID19. Unless the research has changed (and it might, I haven’t been keeping up), this virus came from a specific strain that was endemic to bats in region several hundred miles from Wuhan and a strain found pangolins somewhere. These species and the progenitor viruses were not found in or around the wet market. Maybe the evidence of this was destroyed but the Occams razor argument being put forward here seems to suggest that the wet market is likely just because it’s gross and messy, not because there’s any data to suggest that subcomponent A and B were present. Without these components its nearly impossible that this virus spontaneously appeared there simply because there were animals who could catch it there. Being a potential carrier of COVID19 is a completely different thing than being a carrier of the progenitor viruses. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/446 "2022-03-15T17:17:40Z")
I didn’t mean to say the virus mutated at the market. Rather, have tons of wild animals from lots of places all gathered there means there’s an excellent chance that anything that evolved in the countryside will find a “ride” to the market. I don’t think it developed in the lab, either. I think both the market and the lab are places where lots of new-to-us viruses were collected (accidentally or on purpose) and so both are natural places to find one that infects people. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/447 "2022-03-15T17:29:42Z")
The thread is getting a bit circular, but if the position is that it originated in the wild somewhere and was carried into the wet market, you will expect to see a couple things. 1. A place in the wild where the carriers of the progenitor strains come into contact. 2. A wild reservoir of the SARS-CoV-2 prime strain. China cannot destroy this data. They can possibly restrict scientists ability to search for it, but they can’t hide that. It’s in the wild it should be able to be found. That neither of these things has ever been located to date. And that is the biggest issue with the explanation that is being pushed most vocally. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/448 "2022-03-15T17:33:02Z")
Did you see this post above? It’s what restarted this thread: > [@A theory I saw about how COVID may have escaped from the Wuhan lab](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/418): > > One of the authors has posted a twitter thread explaining their findings. If that’s still too long to read, then here is my very brief summation. Even cases with no known link to the Huanan Market are still geographically centered around the Huanan Market. The Huanan Market is the geographic epicenter of early cases. Genetic data suggests lineage B jumped in late November and started to spread, and A jumped a week or two after B. Positive environmental samples of SARS-CoV-2 were found in th… ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/449 "2022-03-15T17:34:23Z")
I did. No where in that does it address the actual origin of the virus. Only the epicenter of the outbreak which are fundamentally different things. > …and they likely infected a wild or farmed intermediate host with the virus. They handwave away the actual question people are asking. Even advocates of the lab leak/intentional spread theories tend to accept that the wet market was where the mass community spread started. There’s nothing new here. If it entered the wet market from a wild caught intermediate animal or a farmed animal, you’d expect to see cases of SARS-CoV-2 prime in animals on those farms or in those wild forests/caves and among the farmers/trappers who sourced them. The data indicating that the wet market was the start of the outbreak seems to argue in favor of the virus originating in the market itself or in the adjacent lab, not in the wild. Were it truly wild the spread would not be as tightly confined. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/450 "2022-03-15T17:36:27Z")
It directly addresses the origins of the virus in that nifty graphic. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/451 "2022-03-15T17:42:31Z")
See my edit. It very much does not. ---
**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 15, 2022, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/452 "2022-03-15T17:43:09Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > It directly addresses the origins of the virus in that nifty graphic. It has “unknown location” right up to the point where the market is posited as the epicentre of the outbreak. That isn’t the same as identifying where it originally came from. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/453 "2022-03-15T17:44:36Z")
Well, I know it’s not peer reviewed yet, but if it gets there, I’ll just go with those experts. They’ve done more research on this than the two of you combined, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/454 "2022-03-15T17:47:25Z")
Peer reviewed or not, the paper does not assert what you are claiming it asserts. I don’t know why you think this is a “believe the scientists” debate. It’s just proof that the people on the “wild virus” team are just as illogical and tribal as the conspiracy nuts. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/455 "2022-03-15T17:57:24Z")
This (non-peer-reviewed) paper linked above specifically claims that it was from two zoonotic events: > **[SARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events](https://zenodo.org/records/6291628)** > > Understanding the circumstances that lead to pandemics is critical to their prevention. Here, we analyze the pattern and origin of genomic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 early in the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that the SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity prior to... > [@Omniscient](#): > > It’s just proof that the people on the “wild virus” team are just as illogical and tribal as the conspiracy nuts. Please refrain from calling me illogical and tribal in this forum. If you want to call me out, start a Pit thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/456 "2022-03-15T18:13:58Z")
My understanding is that there are caves of bats who have a lot of rather similar viruses not terribly far from the market. And a lot of the viruses in the lab were collected there, and a lot of the wild animals at the market were also collected near there. So again, no real mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/457 "2022-03-15T18:14:40Z")
Hey, you’re the one who trotted out the lame appeal to authority. Look in the mirror. This abstract leaves the exact same question unanswered. If you seriously want to answer the open question put in a little effort to cite the part of the research you think answers it. Or are you simply Googling for every paper whose title vaguely suggests a wild origin? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/458 "2022-03-15T18:14:43Z")
Moderating: > [@Omniscient](#): > > It’s just proof that the people on the “wild virus” team are just as illogical and tribal as the conspiracy nuts. please don’t attack other posters outside the pit. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/459 "2022-03-15T18:16:44Z")
Please apply the same standard to comments headed the other way. There are many using the same format in this thread which went unremarked. ---
**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 15, 2022, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/460 "2022-03-15T18:19:33Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Well, I know it’s not peer reviewed yet, but if it gets there, I’ll just go with those experts. They’ve done more research on this than the two of you combined, I’m sure. Even if it reaches peer reviewed status it doesn’t provide an idenfication of either proposed zoonotic event. I don’t doubt that it represents a realistic interpretation of the evidence made available to them but there are limitations to the conclusions that can be drawn from it, especially when the full facts are not available for study and the circumstances surrounding the initial outbreak remain opaque. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/461 "2022-03-15T18:22:28Z")
Please report posts that you think are inappropriate. I called out the one insult that I read. I am happy to call out others, especially if they are somewhat recent. (My standards for “worth intervening” get stricter the older a post is.) And please don’t complain about moderation within the moderated thread – you can DM the relevant mod, or all the mods (“moderators” is a group name that will send to all of them) or start a thread in ATMB. You can also “report” a moderator’s comment to start a DM with all the mods. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=24)