# 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:** 6
**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:** [February 27, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/102 "2021-02-27T21:41:15Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Okay, so two possibilities are > > 1. the naturally evolved virus did what viruses have done for a billion years, or > 2. the naturally evolved virus did #1, and then it was picked up by a lab for whatever reason, and then it escaped the lab causing a worldwide pandemic. Those are two possibilities but not the only two possibilities. What about 3? where the evolution in the wild is replicated in the lab. That is the sort of research that can and has been carried out before. Similar research has been flagged as a potential risk previously. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/103 "2021-02-27T21:48:24Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Until there’s evidence to support the theory, we can dismiss every explanation that’s more complicated than viruses doing what they’ve always done. How about until we have good evidence one way or another we keep all potential explanations on the table? What possible reason could we have for limiting the scope of the investigation? We really shouldn’t go in to this assuming we know the answer in advance. That leaves us wide open to confirmation bias and narrow thinking. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/104 "2021-02-27T22:26:21Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Add that to the fact that Wuhan is in the range of horseshoe bats, and on the edge of the pangolin range, in a country with a history of zoonotic transmission… I see no reason to torture Occam to find some human involvement here. Horseshoe bats’ and pangolins’ range overlap the entirety of India. Think we can find a prominent coronavirus research lab in every major city there? Perhaps a resistance to “American finger pointing” is the core of your resistance to acknowledging this rather remarkably coincidence in Wuhan? ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/105 "2021-02-27T22:40:22Z")
Here is another hypothesis about the proximity of the lab to the first discovery of the SARS-Cov-2. The lab studies corona viruses because they are endemic to the region. Covid19 started there because corona viruses are endemic to the region. The direction of causation is the opposite to what people are proposing. The lab is there _because_ something like Covid19 was likely to turn up in the region. The labs history goes back decades. It is one of the leading research centers on corona viruses because corona viruses have a natural reservoir in bats in that region. If a lab of that prominence was in central Africa, they would probably be world leaders in malaria research. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/106 "2021-02-27T22:58:07Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > The labs history goes back decades. It is one of the leading research centers on corona viruses because corona viruses have a natural reservoir in bats in that region. Now take a look at how wide the range of these bats are. Explain why Wuhan is any more of a reservoir than the other millions of square miles. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/107 "2021-02-27T23:34:18Z")
Wuhan does not have to be the reservoir. It is one of the largest cities (what’s bigger, Istanbul, a few others?) in the bat’s range. Somebody gets infected where the wild bats interface with people, out in the rural area someplace. Eventually the disease makes its way to the giant city, and provincial capitol, because that is a place people tend to go. Zoonotic transfer is also not equally likely over the entire range of the bat. It is much more likely in places where development is reducing the bats’ habitat, and bringing them into contact with people. I do not know if that makes it more likely in southern China, than say northern India or Spain. However, China is certainly a place that has experienced growth recently. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2021, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/108 "2021-02-27T23:51:27Z")
> [@FigNorton](#): > > Horseshoe bats’ and pangolins’ range overlap the entirety of India. Think we can find a prominent coronavirus research lab in every major city there? What do you believe you’re rebutting here? Please elaborate. > [@](#): > > Perhaps a resistance to “American finger pointing” is the core of your resistance to acknowledging this rather remarkably coincidence in Wuhan? Perhaps you should stick to bad biology instead of bad psychology. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/109 "2021-02-27T23:58:03Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > (what’s bigger, Istanbul, a few others?) Come on. Yes, at least a few others. As I said, they are all over India. You’re writing off the coincidence because there’s only a few other mega cities? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/110 "2021-02-28T00:07:17Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > You can’t credibly talk about “parsimony” when you simply ignore an important piece of circumstantial data and make no attempt to explain it. The explanation for why the disease may have first been spotted in Wuhan is that it’s a major Chinese city in the range of the animals and viruses under study. The viral RNA looks every bit indistinct from a wild sample. If this happened in a nearby major city like Guangzhou, nobody would have spent 5 seconds imagining that it was created by anything in the world but the same natural selection that’s always been responsible for this kind of mutation. The fact that there’s a lab there? It’s a coincidence. How would someone prove to your satisfaction that a given event was entirely coincidental? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/111 "2021-02-28T00:07:35Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > The lab studies corona viruses because they are endemic to the region. Covid19 started there because corona viruses are endemic to the region. The direction of causation is the opposite to what people are proposing. The lab is there _because_ something like Covid19 was likely to turn up in the region. Of course that’s the case. But again, “the region” is immense, including much of southern China and neighboring countries. Wuhan is _part_ of this region, but it’s not as though there is some habitat close to Wuhan that is uniquely likely to have harbored a natural event. Whereas the Wuhan research lab _is_ unique. There are not labs like this dotted around the entire region, so we can’t just say that it was bound to be close to _some_ lab. Wuhan is the numerator of the probability. The denominator of the probability is obviously not the entire world, but it is a very large area. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/112 "2021-02-28T00:07:37Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > What do you believe you’re rebutting here? Please elaborate. This: > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Add that to the fact that Wuhan is in the range of horseshoe bats, and on the edge of the pangolin range, I actually quoted in my post. Didn’t it show on your screen? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/113 "2021-02-28T00:13:07Z")
> [@FigNorton](#): > > I actually quoted in my post. Didn’t it show on your screen? I’m aware of the text you’re responding to, but your response appears to have no relationship to it. No, there aren’t major coronavirus labs in every city in India. What proposition would require that assumption? Please elaborate. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/114 "2021-02-28T00:18:17Z")
You are dismissing the coincidence because it’s no surprise that a large city in coronavirus bat country would have a bat coronovirus research lab. I rebutted that there’s a whole bunch of big cities within coronavirus bat country that do not have bat coronavirus research labs so it is indeed a coincidence. That clear it up? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/115 "2021-02-28T00:23:38Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > The explanation for why the disease may have first been spotted in Wuhan is that it’s a major Chinese city in the range of the animals and viruses under study. T And how large is the _total_ area that’s in the range of the animals and viruses under study? It’s vast. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > If this happened in a nearby major city like Guangzhou, nobody would have spent 5 seconds imagining that it was created by anything in the world but the same natural selection that’s always been responsible for this kind of mutation. Of course not. Because the leading coronavirus research lab in the world _is not located in Guangzhou_! I really don’t understand what’s so difficult ahout this. There is a vast area in which an entirely natural event _could_ have occurred. Within that vast area, there is _one_ lab that is the world leader on researching this type of virus. Out of all the possible places that a natural event could have occurred, the first major outbreak was in fact identified close to that lab. If you refuse to accept that if this happened by chance it is obviously a low probability event, I really can’t help you further. I’m open minded to additional facts that may not yet be in evidence in this discussion, but based on what we have talked about so far it’s apparent that you just don’t understand how probability works. You are simply wrong. ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/116 "2021-02-28T00:33:44Z")
> [@FigNorton](#): > > You are dismissing the coincidence because it’s no surprise that a large city in coronavirus bat country would have a bat coronovirus research lab. OK, I see the misunderstanding. My piece of information there was only to reinforce that, if we weren’t thinking about the lab there, nobody would have any trouble whatsoever believing it was natural transmission. It’s a (relatively) highly probable event in that city, like every other city that has those sorts of animals. The presence of a lab there doesn’t reduce that probability. > [@](#): > > I rebutted that there’s a whole bunch of big cities within coronavirus bat country that do not have bat coronavirus research labs so it is indeed a coincidence. What do you think you’re proving by saying it’s a coincidence? Of course it’s a coincidence. We have no reason to believe that’s anything but a coincidence. ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/117 "2021-02-28T00:36:39Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > So, does it make sense that COVID would first be discovered near a lab where they probably take higher precautions with the population, and do more testing for any suspicious new diseases, specifically because the lab is there? Perhaps. Certainly the Wuhan lab was the lab that sequenced the virus and determined its identity to a coronavirus in a local bat species. [A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin | Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7) **I suppose that lab is located in Wuhan because Wuhan is the largest city in central China and that area has a lot of bats with coronavirus. So, in my mind, the its not a coincidence that a coronavirus lab exists where there’s lots of coronavirus bats around.** Here’s what I speculate. The coronavirus mutated to transmit to humans somewhere in China (whether or not it’s in Wuhan). It started spreading and even reached Italy by Fall 2019, but maybe was not as contagious, hadn’t gotten into a superspreader person/event, or it just didn’t reach levels of exponential growth yet. So, it’s spreading around central China for a while with a few people going to the hospital with pneumonia. At some point it gets to a threshold level and enough people bring it to a wet market in Wuhan. All hell breaks lose. Italy is the next place to get hit hard because there’s lots of business interactions between Turin, Milan, and central China. There was already significant amounts of virus floating around in the fall. ---
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/118 "2021-02-28T00:37:03Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > OK, I see the misunderstanding. My piece of information there was only to reinforce that, if we weren’t thinking about the lab there, nobody would have any trouble whatsoever believing it was natural transmission. It’s a highly probable event in that city, like every city that has those sorts of animals. The presence of a lab there doesn’t reduce that probability. But it’s crazy to ignore it when it does occur! Old dogs die. If I came home and my old dog had passed away I would be sad and accept it. If I found my old dog dead with my roommate standing next to him with a bottle of pills, I’m going to have some questions. ---
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/119 "2021-02-28T00:44:12Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > …if we weren’t thinking about the lab there, nobody would have any trouble whatsoever believing it was natural transmission. It’s a (relatively) highly probable event in that city, like every other city that has those sorts of animals. Want to make sure I’m reading this right. This part means that viral transmission from animals to humans is…well, is it something that happens relatively frequently? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/120 "2021-02-28T00:46:52Z")
> [@FigNorton](#): > > But it’s crazy to ignore it when it does occur! Old dogs die. If I came home and my old dog had passed away I would be sad and accept it. If I found my old dog dead with my roommate standing next to him with a bottle of pills, I’m going to have some questions. It’s normal to have questions in that scenario, and a very normal answer would be “I was putting away this prescription when I noticed the dog was unresponsive. After all, he is very old.” When you have a very likely explanation, it doesn’t make sense to keep looking for even more unlikely ones. The things that would happen to create this specific virus, with no RNA evidence of lab tampering, and to have an accidental release… the chance of those all those things happening sequentially is very unlikely. Why believe the elaborate and improbable scenario when there’s much more reason to believe the very likely and common scenario we see all the time? ---
**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:** [February 28, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082/121 "2021-02-28T00:53:45Z")
> [@SayTwo](#): > > Want to make sure I’m reading this right. This part means that viral transmission from animals to humans is…well, is it something that happens relatively frequently? Viruses swap RNA or DNA very frequently. It doesn’t always result in animal-human transmission, and not all those diseases are serious. But according to [the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html), 3 out of 4 emerging infectious diseases are from animals to human transmission. So yeah, for purposes of this discussion, it’s pretty frequent. My purpose in making that comment was to note that Wuhan is as good a city as any for this kind of event to occur, and the existence of a lab doesn’t make it any less likely that natural transmission could occur there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-theory-i-saw-about-how-covid-may-have-escaped-from-the-wuhan-lab/933082.md?page=7)