Talk:Origin of SARS-CoV-2

Topic code	Area of conflict	Decision linked to
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=aa}}	politics, ethnic relations, and conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=crypto}}	blockchain and cryptocurrencies	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=kurd}}	Kurds and Kurdistan	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=mj}}	Michael Jackson	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Michael Jackson
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=pw}}	professional wrestling	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=rusukr}}	the Russo-Ukrainian War	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=sasg}}	South Asian social groups	Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=syria}}	the Syrian Civil War and ISIL	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=uku}}	measurement units in the United Kingdom	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
{{Origin of SARS-CoV-2|topic=uyghur}}	Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghurs

WHO "report was subject to political pressure"

This is currently stated in Wikivoice, when it's actually an allegation made my other governments (and even sourced to them in the article). At a minimum this needs to be properly attributed (it's not), instead of stated in Wikivoice. But I don't think this allegation should even be in the article, since it's strenuously denied by the WHO and the WHO team, and since it muddies the waters about the investigation's findings. -Darouet (talk) 19:01, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Good catch. I agree, and think this is better covered in the International policitians' calls for investigations section that was recently added specifically for this kind of information. On a similar note, the content about the WHA/WHO in the Investigations by governments section seems like it would fit better in the World Health Organization investigations section instead. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Maybe I should have written that as "political criticism". I thought the sentence made clear that what is being referred to is not allegations of interference by China but the criticism by the 14 other countries. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:54, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Instead of 'pressure' or 'interference', perhaps it would be simpler to refer directly to the root concern: lack of raw data provided by China. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:20, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: I've added something based on a piece in the Lancet. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:13, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I’d say remove it but not because its inaccurate but because its a tautology, all WHO reports are subject to political pressure... That is inherent in the very nature of such an international organization. If we have specific allegations of interference we can talk about those specific allegations. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:22, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Note that the current text doesn't appear to say anything about "political pressure" (only "politicisation"), or at least not in the relevant section. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:27, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: thank you for the correction/update. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@Darouet: do you feel that the issue still stands based on the current text? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Wuhan lab leak section

I don't think this section belongs in the article. Right now, the article describes:

1. investigations and findings by scientists,
2. investigations and findings by the WHO,
3. investigations or calls for investigations by governments / other bodies, and
4. the Wuhan lab leak idea.

I moved the Wuhan lab section to the end of the article because one specific type of pseudoscience doesn't belong in the middle of the article. But I have to recognize that no matter where I put the section, it sticks out as incongruous. We should remove it. -Darouet (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I added it because there have been serious investigations into a lab leak origin of COVID-19. When the WHO and the US intelligence community are doing years of research into the idea, it is a topic that must be discussed. Coverage of pure speculation should remain in the COVID-19 misinformation, I agree. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

User:力, the problem is that the addition privileges an idea that most biological scientists consider pseudoscience above others. Within the universe of highly likely scenarios describing the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, there are dozens of scenarios that could get their own specific section, but we haven't produced those. Similarly, among the universe of "extremely unlikely" scenarios, there are others beyond "lab leak" that could get their own section. I do understand that in the popular media, lab leak is discussed a lot, but among most scientists, it's considered a FRINGE idea. -Darouet (talk) 15:57, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The US government is investigating it and has said that it is a possibility, David Baltimore, a virologist and Nobel Laureaute recently said that there are some features in the virus that challenge the idea of a natural origin for the virus, the market origin theory has been shown to be untrue, many virologists have said that the theory is plausible. Calling it pseudoscience is strange when even the WHO has launched (albeit very flawed) inquiries into it. -Solid Reign (talk) 13:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

{{citation needed}}. What exactly is the psuedoscience here? What are these "dozens" of scenarios? Apart from "came from a bat, probably through some other species", can you provide 2 other scenarios? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

As in, something close to the original strain evolved in one of many SE Asian bat subpopulations, did or didn't passage through domesticated or semi-domesticated animals of many possible varieties, crossed over into humans in one of innumerable villages, the first person (or people) exposed were farmers/hunters/traders/miners/etc, the route of the virus to a larger city center occurred through trade/work/school, a given number of clusters formed before one was detected at the market in Wuhan... multiplying those possibilities together and you get a sense of the origin mechanisms and scenarios that scientists consider likely. -Darouet (talk) 16:54, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the section should be titled "Investigations into potential Wuhan lab leak"? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Whatever we do, it's a complete mess in the current state. It's mostly repeating information which was presented above (in multiple paragraphs). It's calling it a conspiracy theory, but only explicitly discusses the scientific hypothesis the WHO evaluated, and not the conspiracies of a bioweapon. I'm going to be bold and nuke it (WP:BRD), if there's information that isn't duplicated in the other sections of the articles, feel free to add it back there. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:30, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't disagree that it's a mess, but we absolutely must describe what the "lab leak theory" is at some point in the article, we cannot just say it is false/misinformation. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

We do discuss it, and not as misinformation. So propose or add text in one (or more) of the current sections it's already discussed: the lede, Reservoir and zoonotic origin, World Health Organization investigations, The Lancet COVID-19 Commission task force, and/or Investigations by governments. The WHO section seems like a good starting point. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll add that other users removed the majority of your originally proposed text for various reasons, which left the section in the state that it was unnecessary. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:44, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Looking for comment on your revert. I envisioned my removal as the Revert of WP:BRD with @力: having made the bold edit. I'd rather see us move any missing info (that isn't conspiracy, which belongs elsewhere) into the above sections, instead of just restoring the section which has major problems (see above). Bakkster Man (talk) 18:31, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

My opinions - this article is about the investigations, not the conspiracies - the investigations have certainly happened and are continuing, and thus it shouldn't be labeled a "conspiracy theory" in the heading. It should be labeled a "hypothesis" because it is a validly crafted hypothesis - even if exceedingly unlikely. This article should cover the different investigations that have been done as well as the results they've had - increasing level of unlikelihood. This article should not repeat what's in COVID-19 misinformation about those who are "hyperbolizing" the hypothesis into more than it is. I do not think it is a good idea to separate by WHO/not-WHO investigations - a chronological timeline is likely to be better. I think Power's suggestion for titles/information are all appropriate and should be considered. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

We should mention the relationship between misinformation and investigation where RS does. The wholesale removal of the section with a false edit summary was not helpful. Alexbrn (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

While consensus may differ, I disagree that a full revert is necessarily unhelpful. Often reworking from the start is more effective than trying to make small revisions on something that needs a lot of work. I'd also point out that while my edit comment may have been in error stating it was entirely duplicate info, I did point editors to this talk section where I was able to explain in greater detail. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

My position is that some article, somewhere on the project, needs a stand-alone section on legitimate scientific inquiries into the hypothesis that COVID originated from a lab leak. There is certainly information to add; I don't see any discussion of the claims that the initial low mutation rate suggests a lab origin (I would want better sourcing than [1] for an article, but it's good enough for a talk page). Have other scientists dismissed that argument for legitimate reasons? Then we should say so. At COVID-19 misinformation, editors have suggested that legitimate scientific inquiries should be discussed elsewhere. I have no strong preference for it being in this article as opposed to some other one (or a stand-alone article). User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:NOPAGE certain topics, even if notable, are better encompassed in articles of wider scope. Per WP:GEVAL we wouldn't really want to be giving a fringe notion like the "lab leak" a space where it was presented without proper rational context describing how fringe it is, according to decent RS. Alexbrn (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a proposed use case for how a wikilink to a specific section on the topic would be used? That would help me to understand why you feel it was important to include under a standalone heading. I'd suggest that if we did this, a good path to go down would be to include all four WHO-referenced hypotheses (direct zoonosis, zoonosis via intermediary, cold/food chain, and lab leak) in order of evaluated likelihood, rather than only one section for this explanation. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Dunno. If we want a whole section about the narrative that the virus came from Fort Detrick, or the WIV, or wherever (i.e. the "lab leak hypothesis"), we'd need decent sources on that, and to give a mainstream context that this is likely nonsense, per WP:GEVAL. Alexbrn (talk) 19:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I obviously don't want the conspiracies, those belong on the Misinformation article. I think the root information that would be valuable is to explain what is meant by scientists when they evaluate the possibility of a lab leak (ie. gathered from bats, possible gain of function for study, accidental exposure/release). This is probably the article to do that in a DUE manner, as well as for the other potential scenarios (the 'cold/food chain' is unintuitive to the average reader, for instance).

Sounds WP:EXCEPTIONAL. You sources would be ... ? Alexbrn (talk) 19:31, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm referring to something like what is found in the Joint WHO-China report section, under the Explanation of Hypothesis section for each hypothesis.

Introduction through the cold/food chain hypothesis: Food-chain transmission can reflect direct zoonotic transmission, or spillover through an intermediate host. Meanwhile cold chain products may be a vehicle of transmission between humans. This would also refer to food-contamination events in addition to introductions. The focus of this paragraph is on cold/food chain products and their containers as potential route of introduction of SARS-CoV-2. Here, it is important to distinguish between contamination of cold chain products leading to secondary outbreaks in 2020 and the potential for cold chain acting as the entry pathway for the origin of the pandemic in 2019.

Introduction through a laboratory incident hypothesis: SARS-CoV-2 is introduced through a laboratory incident, reflecting an accidental infection of staff from laboratory activities involving the relevant viruses. We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome (3).

Obviously all needs to be run through DUE and such, but I'm only recommending a summary description of how our cited sources are characterizing the scenarios we're discussing. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Can't see there's anything substantive there that's not covered. You are of course equally keen for the frozen food narrative - to which the WHO commits more words - to be expanded upon? Alexbrn (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you seem to be implying I'm "keen" for any of the hypotheses. I referenced these two because, of the WHO-evaluated hypotheses, they're the least intuitive and thus an explanation on the page would most improve comprehension. I think we both agree that the WHO-evaluated hypothesis is the only one to consider on this page (not the conspiracies), and that the hypothesis is extremely unlikely. It makes sense to me to explain the distinction between the theories considered "unlikely but plausible subjects of legitimate scientific consideration" and "bogus politically motivated conspiracies". Bakkster Man (talk) 20:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I fully support Bakkster Man's proposal here. I would like to know more myself about the "frozen food" theory, and having two "other theories considered but rejected" should minimize the implication that we are unduly promoting the lab leak theory. The argument that there may be a shortage of space is ridiculous; you have seen how many articles we have on cricketers, right? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Don't read my above comments as complete agreement with subsections. My actual preference is for any necessary explanation of the referenced hypotheses to happen without a subsection. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The only part of a "frozen food" section I felt qualified to write was the header, so I did that. I have not read the 2021 WHO report yet. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:08, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to understand your reason for subsections first, as I asked above, before I add content to a subsection I don't think should exist. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Hey User:力, I'm sympathetic to the idea of creating a separate article, but in all likelihood, it will become a dumping ground for all the popular press articles that scientists here at Wikipedia are currently keeping out of articles on COVID-19. There's been discussion on twitter about finding a space on Wikipedia to let this happen - and originally, this article was written as just such a space. -Darouet (talk) 22:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Sigh. I'm reverting User:RandomCanadian here in a minute because this shouldn't be controversial. This is an article about investigations. Are people seriously denying that the lab leak has been investigated and saying that it's undue to discuss those investigations here? Obviously the discussion of those investigations shouldn't imply that they were ever considered likely, but this article does need to discuss them and the work power~enwiki is doing is a clear improvement. This is due for this article - obviously investigations, especially those which get a lot of popular news, are due for an article about investigations. And yes, each independent "course of investigation" should be given its own section - there is more than enough reliably sourced information out there about the investigation into the lab leak itself to craft a section describing it. FRINGE/pseudoscience (which don't apply to the investigations, but anyway) don't tell us "never mention them" - they say to not give them credibility - which discussing the investigations doesn't do. In fact, a clear section about the investigations and how they reached the "extremely unlikely" outcomes will actually help us comply with those policies by explaining the reasoning behind and the investigations that have been done. I recommend people stop trying to halt changes and let power, who from what I can see is an uninvolved party, work on this for a while and discuss with them here before just reverting them outright with no comment on the talk page to explain why. Pinging power so they know I commented here. Nothing power edited gives any more credence to the theory than this article did before, and their edits expanded the encyclopedic information about the investigations - and were perfectly fine. Any specific problems with specific edits should be discussed with power here before unilaterally reverting and not saying anything. There's enough disruption and lack of collegiality from new/POV-pushing editors here - let's please not increase the disruption/"fighting" by reverting things before discussion when they aren't egregiously problematic. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:36, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The information as reported by WP:RS should be incorporated into the article, but the appropriate place to do that is within existing sections not as a massive stand-alone section which is way beyond WP:DUEWEIGHT. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted again per WP:BRD - you attempted an edit, it's been reverted, now is the time to discuss. I agree with Horse Eye that a separate section for everyone's favourite (the irony must be obvious, but in any case, since this is the internet) fringe theory would be UNDUE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:52, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

This isn't about the theory - so good try. This is about the investigations of that theory - investigations are notable, are due, and are not "fringe" as they are simply historical events. Maybe you should read power's edit again - they added nothing about the "theory" but added encyclopedic information about the investigations. Sections help readability - it is much better to have a section with 4-5 paragraphs describing these investigations (which can easily be written and due given how many investigations both WHO and otherwise there have been) than it is to attempt to shove it into another section that already has 4+ paragraphs. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

UNDUE also comes into play as to "how much weight do we need to give to topics closely related to a fringe hypothesis"? We don't need to go into exruciating details about the investigations into the fringe theory. If the change had only been adding a section header, that wouldn't have been problematic. If you want to propose a section on the topic, feel free to do so and add one here on the talk page up for discussion and wait until there is some form of consensus for it before adding it to the article - that is what WP:BRD means. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Until the intermediary host or original bat population is found, it's completely asinine to label the lab theory a fringe hypothesis. The circumstantial evidence is pretty staggering. --Edit0r6781 (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

First of all, there's no consensus that it's "fringe" - just that it's not the scientific consensus as to the "most likely" at this time. Furthermore, even if there were, FRINGE applies specifically to the theories/hypothesis - you'll note we have an entire article on vaccines and autism for example, even though that's a fringe theory. That article discusses the investigations, and the evidence, and also provides a "here's what they say and why it's wrong" overview. So no, FRINGE does not apply to information about a fringe theory, it applies to claiming the theory itself is valid. There's certainly many FRINGE theories that have gotten so much mainstream attention - not necessarily belief/credibility, but attention - to merit full articles, or at a minimum sections in another article. So yes, I'll propose that below because your reading of FRINGE and DUE seems to be very out of touch with what its goal actually is - which isn't to prevent discussion of a fringe theory at all, it's to prevent it from being placed/discussed in a way that gives it credibility. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

While I disagree a bit on the minutiae about FRINGE (I'd say between WHO and others conclusions on the likelihood makes the opinion that the lab origin was 'more likely than not' is the minority), I agree completely that FRINGE is about portrayal relative to the mainstream, not complete abolition. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Specific subsection

This shouldn't be necessary, but here: A specific subsection (likely under the WHO investigations heading or the "further investigations" heading) should be created to discuss the plethora of investigations conducted into the "lab leak" and how they concluded that it is "extremely unlikely". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support per comments above. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  What I was suggesting was a precise text that we can review and identify flaws in... Something like what's been ongoing at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic recently, but without any of the SPAs obviously. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:19, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  If text isn't horribly problematic, there shouldn't be any mandate to get consensus on the talk page for the exact text first. There's a reason WP:SOFIXIT redirects to the "be bold" policy. If you find a problem in something, but it's not overall problematic, it's better to work on improving it further than simply revert - or if you're unwilling or unable to do so, to leave it and tag problems for others to fix. Alternatively, you could make a post on the talkpage identifying problems with a recent edit without reverting. There's no mandate in BRD that the R has to happen - if someone makes a bold change that isn't an immense problem, you can always choose to leave it and voice concerns on the talk page anyway. Power is a very experienced editor, and I'm sure they'd respond to your concerns here regardless of you reverting or not. Since you said that a section on the topic should be proposed, I did so - without specific text because there's no rush on deciding on specific text and Wikipedia is a work in progress that will continue to be improved regardless of the initial text in a created section. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  This is an article about COVID, so I prefer we be extra cautious especially if it involves controversial information. The empty section on "food chain" transmission is not necessary. The whole section you added seems like a duplicate of the bullet points above (in addition to needing some copy-editing...). Details about the scientific consensus should go to the main COVID-19 pandemic article (where they already mostly are); details about investigations discrediting the lab leak can go in the section to that effect on the misinformation article. We should be wary of the scope of this article and avoid unnecessary duplication - this is about investigations into the origins of the virus, not everything related thereto. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  What I don't want us to do is get involved in what's gone on at Donald Trump where most of the lead and quite a few portions of the body are virtually unedited because every time someone wants to make a change a whole RfC is needed on a specific text. Especially with experienced editors such as power~enwiki, we shouldn't need to do that and we should try not to. The investigations are not covered in the misinformation article - there have been many investigations that aren't misinformation - such as the WHO conclusion of "extremely unlikely" - that's not misinformation and is out of scope for that article. It should be covered here - because as you say, this is about investigations into the origins of the virus. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  The WHO investigation is already covered here. The content you wanted to add is duplicative and doesn't add anything new or useful here. If you wish to cover other scientific investigations, feel free to do so, but that (in addition to additional content) might need a different header? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:48, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  I tend to agree, especially since there have been two separate WP:BRDs just today. I've seen sandboxes and such work well here, and after BRD has been contentious (like this) seems like the time to try that. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose since I haven't yet seen a reason (let alone good) why we need a separate sub-heading for any explanations of the investigated theories. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
• There's a chicken-and-egg problem here; a !vote on a section would be clearer if that section were fully written, but it is impossible to write the section if people keep reverting it out of the article entirely. Additionally, I will only have minimal time for Wikipedia over the next few days, and cannot do more to write the section myself. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:22, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

This is what a sandbox is for, generally. See WP:ABOUTSAND. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support, inclusion as a subsection or even section is DUE by amount of traction the hypothesis has generated. Admittedly, inclusion requires skillful editing to do proper attributions and avoid politicization, Bakkster and power may be the best editors to initiate such a draft. Forich (talk) 17:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to take a stab at better describing the four hypotheses evaluated by the WHO report in paragraph form (which I think is needed), and then we can take a look and decide if it improves the article, and if so whether there should be sub-sections per hypothesis. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support due to the large amount of quality sourcing that is available.[2][3] Adoring nanny (talk) 18:01, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  Neither NPR or NYT are MEDRS, so I don't see how these two articles are "quality sourcing" for purposes here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support in principle, oppose without an actual proposal As I was saying above, you should make a draft of the proposed section (either using {{ctop}} and {{cbot}}, as for ex. at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic, or using a dedicated sandbox page in your userspace). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The lab leak hypothesis has been discussed in high-quality sources, along with credible concerns about the WHO investigation, conflict of interests, etc.[4] Stonkaments (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support. As per Stonkaments well articulated points. CutePeach (talk) 13:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Sandboxed scenario descriptions

I've sandboxed a description of the four WHO-assessed scenarios at the following location: User:Bakkster Man/Origin Sandbox.

I'm pretty happy with how it looks, with similar character counts for the four scenarios and the commonly agreed to information. Anyone is welcome to continue to refine the wording (I'm sure it needs it).

Almost everything is sourced from the WHO joint report at the moment (if anyone can provide additional citations, it would be much appreciated) with one additional reference to the In Vivo paper, which I'd prefer to replace if possible if someone has a cleaner source. I went with bolding for the scenario names used by the WHO, which could be easily be converted to sub-headings if there's consensus, but I think it's more readable without. I'm also open to ideas where to put such a section. Two options I see would be in the Scientific consensus on origins header (editing the first paragraph of the sandbox to mesh) or in/before/after the World Health Organization investigations (again, with editing to avoid duplicate info). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:23, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Nice draft, read through it all and will comment on various points. The first is that the intro paragraph "several decades" of genetic distance seems to broad, it could mean anything from 2 to 10 decades. I believe we can use the point estimate (what was it, 25?) with a parenthesis indicating the confidence interval. Or we can include something like "approximately xx years". Forich (talk) 21:09, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Definitely a location that a more specific source would be of benefit, the WHO report kept this broad with "several decades of evolutionary space". I'd be in favor of a more refined estimate if we can provide a solid MEDRS secondary source. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:31, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Nice draft! Wizzy…☎ 16:46, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: did post your comments on various points? I also have a few comments to improve this excellent draft. CutePeach (talk) 13:19, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich and CutePeach:Don't just comment, be WP:BOLD and edit the sandbox directly. That's what it's there for. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:38, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Its done, thanks for the heads up. Forich (talk) 14:10, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Added to the main page. Thanks especially to Forich for his help, especially digging up some solid supporting sources beyond the WHO report. Please feel free to edit as needed, as always. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:42, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

evidence for natural emergence

Are any of these things true that Wade says are summaries of the current state of research?

• Many traces of SARS1 and MERS in the environment were soon found (and their intermediate host species within 4 and 9 months, respectively) but none have been found for SARS2 despite intensive searches during more than a year.
• None of these have been found: neither the original bat population, nor the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, nor any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019.
• Natural emergence of SARS2 remains only a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, has gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year. --Espoo (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Traces of SARS2, no actual traces found in animal sampled early in the outbreak. Market samples were environmental, mink samples were found way later. There's the frozen food hypothesis, but it is weak.
• Original bat population, not found directly, but genetic evidence very strongly supports it comes from bats. Intermediate species, still unknown. Serological evidence of cryptic infections in humans: evidence was reviewed by the WHO team with no finding of prior outbreaks to December 2019.
• Natural emergence, has strong evidence on its genetic aspects, because virologists have reconstructed theoretical path from backbones to SARS-CoV-2 via recombination, though the evidence still has missing pieces here and there, as opposed as with SARS1 where they found the recombinations neatly. The evidence on the forensic sample aspect of epidemiology, is absent, zero. Taken together, some authorities value the forensic sample side more than the genetics, but others value them the opposite way, so the final balance on this is open for debate. Forich (talk) 02:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

USER:Espoo, you made at least four assertions above, some with multiple parts. They each need to be taken separately:

• and their intermediate host species within 4 and 9 months, respectively. This is an assertion of fact. It should be easy to check one way or the other. That said, to put it into the article, you'd run into a host of Wikipedia policies -- WP:SYNTH, WP:DUE, and so on.
• None of these have been found: Again this is a series of assertions of fact. No bat population with Covid has been found, or if it has, somebody is keeping awfully quiet. There has been found a bat population that suffers from the related virus known as "RaTG13". For the other items in your list, I'm unaware of any report of them having been found. Again, you'd run into WP:SYNTH, WP:DUE, etc. to try to put it into the article. God forbid that our media, or Wikipedia, put two and two together.
• Natural emergence of SARS2 remains only a conjecture That's a fair characterization, though the fact that something is a "conjecture" doesn't tell us whether the evidence for it is weak or strong.
• which, however plausible to begin with, has gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year. That's a statement of opinion. As such, one can't characterize it as true or false. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see how it would be unreasonable to at least mention the fact that notably, unlike similar viruses, no original bat population has been found for COVID. This is not WP:Synthesis because it's a direct quote from the widely cited Adams article, which to my knowledge no refutation has been given... and if a refutation has been given, it would be notable to just discuss both claims so as to ensure balance and educate the reader who is seeking these answers. The lab leak hypothesis at this point is not fringe enough to disregard, balanced article would engage in evidence rather than rely on opinions or conjecture. E.g. it's ridiculous to me the only "supporting" evidence given to the lab leak hypothesis is the random opinion of a CDC director, rather than a cited discussion of the available arguments leading to the current virologist consensus.64.46.20.154 (talk) 10:01, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• it's ridiculous to me the only "supporting" evidence given to the lab leak hypothesis is the random opinion of a CDC director, rather than You are aware of the fact that pieces of missing evidence for one idea are not evidence for another idea? See argumentum ad ignorantiam. (This is a thing we have to explain to creationists all the time when they point to pieces of evidence for evolution that they could not find.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:15, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

re: the Nicholas Wade discussion earlier

I noticed today that his Medium blog post was picked up & published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

Would that kind of backing give it any extra credence or legitimacy? 2604:3D09:167F:D900:C0D6:481B:D90A:3D99 (talk) 18:22, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

The BAS is "a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity." No evidence of peer-review by relevant topic experts in virology or related fields. The journal itself, per Bulletin_of_the_Atomic_Scientists#Indexing, is not even much cited in its own topic of expertise ("international relations" and "social issues"). That, along with the dubious credentials of its author, strongly precludes using this, since it clearly is not a WP:MEDRS. We can maybe briefly mention it over at the misinformation article if it gets significant coverage in well-known newspapers (for example, see how Bannon et al. are mentioned here), but that's unlikely, and we'd also have to consider whether it really is a significant proponent or just another random unknowledgeable skeptic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:30, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

For the MD project it is better to use review articles from MEDLINE to discuss the topic of the origin of COVID 19. This review article from May 2021 titled "On the Origin of SARS-CoV-2: Did Cell Culture Experiments Lead to Increased Virulence of the Progenitor Virus for Humans?" would be just such a medical review article. --Guest2625 (talk) 12:53, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

A very good source for the minority opinion. On my reading, this appears to mirror the existing claims being attributed by Wade to David Baltimore, by Robert R. Redfield, by David Relman, and others. Except now we have a MEDRS source describing the rationale one would follow to reach such a conclusion. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:53, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Some additional notes on the paper: the author Bernd Kaina is not a virologist, though his background on cancer toxicology and DNA damage appears to have informed much of the paper. There are some obvious errors as a result, most notably he mentions "the lethality for other corona virus infections", but lists non-coronaviruses (Marburg virus and ebolavirus) instead of the four coronaviruses which result in the common cold. I always have trouble finding whether journal papers are peer reviewed or not, and figuring out whether this slipped past the reviewers or it was simply unreviewed may determine whether we consider the paper reliable (more specifically, if we can consider it to fulfill the WP:MEDRS guidelines). Bakkster Man (talk) 15:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

In Vivo is a journal about cancer research (oncology), so, to put it mildly, it isn't exactly the best source for this. It also has many inaccuracies. Some basic claims such as "In contrast to other infectious diseases, COVID-19 affects young people far less than the elderly." (see Influenza#Epidemiology for an obvious counter-example) aren't particularly confidence-inspiring. The paper makes a startling interrogation and error by omission, stating that "But how is the virus supposed to get from the bats that catch their food - insects and spiders - in flight at night into the pangolin, whose natural home is Malaysia," - ignoring entirely that the pangolin is present in mainland China and that it is also a nocturnal animal. The paper then goes on to make a claim that SARS-CoV 2 literally evolved in the lab: "In conclusion, there is a remarkable identity on amino acid and nucleotide level in and around the PCS between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. This supports the hypothesis that the PCS/furin cleavage site was gained by a recombination event(s) involving these virus sequences. This notion is important in considering possible zoonotic events, placing laboratory events in the realm of the highly possible." and "It is also conceivable that when cells in culture were coinfected with the predecessor of SARS-CoV-2 and another virus strain that contains the PCS/furin cleavage site, the sequence was transferred to the predecessor virus as a result of a recombination event." Then goes on to state "A hypothesis intensively discussed in scientific and public media is that SARS-CoV-2 is “man-made”, i.e. it represents a laboratory construct or was purposefully manipulated." - that's the nail in the coffin, because the "man-made" hypothesis has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of MEDRS. So basically we have a paper in a non-virology journal arguing for the debunked claim that the virus is man made. Usable to identify it's authors as proponents (if they get really prominent like Redfield et al.), unusable as a scientific source. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:44, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Another "entertaining" claim in that paper is "d) The presence of a human sequence in the virus genome (40) strongly indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was propagated in human cells before it caused the pandemic." (the source is another paper in In Vivo). Apparently a very controversial claim, [5]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the more I read, the less I'm thinking it's credible even for the very limited case of providing context of the minority opinion. Even if there's some accurate information in there (and I think there probably is), I'm coming to agree with you that the level of WP:REDFLAGs makes the article as a whole too much of a poison pill. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: Look and ye shall find. This appears to cover everything, is from a MEDLINE indexed journal ([6]), and comes from a reputable publisher (Elsevier). Ticks all of the marks. Not sure if it would be DUE here, though. Maybe at the virus page. Maybe also to debunk some of the other conspiracy theories at the misinformation page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:31, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: On a quick look, it seems like a great explanation of the type of viral research being referred to. I'll have to think if it's SYNTH to use it for some of the things we want to cite, but I'm sure there's something good to be mined from it. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:49, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Another great science review article from February 2021 which covers in-depth the topic of the possible origins of SARS2 is the review "Tracing the origins of SARS-COV-2 in coronavirus phylogenies: a review". Also to get an idea of how the origin topic is now being covered in the literature you can read a review such as "A Perspective on COVID-19 Management" from April 2021 where it briefly discusses the origin of SARS2 and states:

"Both the “natural zoonotic transfer” or “lab escape” theories might partially explain the origin of the polybase cleavage site of furin, which is the area of the S glycoprotein that makes it susceptible to cleavage by the host enzyme furin and which greatly promotes the spread of the virus in the body."

It is important to realize that Wikipedia does not lead the news but follows the news; therefore, in the sciences Wikipedia is generally at least a year behind what is going on, although it is up-to-date in the medical field because of MEDRS reliability requirements. --Guest2625 (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The first paper has already been mentioned before. It's in "Environmental Chemistry Letters", clearly not a medical journal, and even the French language version which was in a proper journal doesn't support the lab leak as a mainstream idea. (The English has "The hypothesis promoted by most specialists is that the virus has a zoonotic origin." - the other opinion is cited to a paper by Sirotkin (a non-virologist, active on twitter with the usual suspects [Deigin, DRASTIC, you know them], publishing in the same journal). The second paper is published by MDPI, a poor, potentially predatory publisher. This seems to be the case since the reviewers, if any, missed that the sources used to support "The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still controversial" are two papers, one dating from 2015 and the other from 2014. The journal is not MEDLINE indexed either (Pubmed does not include the paper if I apply the MEDLINE filter). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:29, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, power~enwiki, Jtbobwaysf This is a mischaracterization of the first MEDRS "Tracing the origins of SARS-COV-2 in coronavirus phylogenies: a review". Despite a layman's interpretation of the title "Environmental Chemistry Letters", the journal "covers the interfaces of geology, chemistry, physics and biology. Articles published here are of high importance to the study of natural and engineered environments." [7] Regardless, the original French language version in the journal "médecine/sciences" [8] meets MEDRS and is MEDLINE indexed and clearly summarizes, "On the basis of currently available data, it is impossible to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 is the result of a natural zoonotic emergence or an accidental escape from experimental strains."[9] Dinglelingy (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

This and the other sources pretty much throws this Scientific Consensus POV under the bus (in fact it has been under the bus for some time other than a few very noisy editors on this talk page). Change is slow with this level of TE we have here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:06, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

No it doesn't change anything, at all. The letter is just an example of Science by press conference (thanks to Alexbrn for pointing that out). Unless the authors publish a peer-reviewed review article in a reputable journal which makes significant claims in the matter, their opinion remains unsubstantiated by MEDRS, and even if they do, then that would still be one contrarian paper among so many others (though at the point, if it ever happens mention might be less UNDUE than now). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

The French-language abstract has no mention of that:

Full abstract in French

Le SARS-CoV-2 est un nouveau coronavirus (CoV) humain. Il a émergé en Chine fin 2019 et est responsable de la pandémie mondiale de Covid-19 qui a causé plus de 540 000 décès en six mois. La compréhension de l’origine de ce virus est une question importante et il est nécessaire de déterminer les mécanismes de sa dissémination afin de pouvoir se prémunir de nouvelles épidémies. En nous fondant sur des inférences phylogénétiques, l’analyse des séquences et les relations structure-fonction des protéines de coronavirus, éclairées par les connaissances actuellement disponibles, nous discutons les différents scénarios évoqués pour rendre compte de l’origine - naturelle ou synthétique - du virus. (Sallard, Erwan; Halloy, José; Casane, Didier; Helden, Jacques van; Decroly, Étienne (1 August 2020). "Retrouver les origines du SARS-CoV-2 dans les phylogénies de coronavirus". médecine/sciences (in French). 36 (8–9): 783–796. doi:10.1051/medsci/2020123. ISSN 0767-0974.)

The authors then go on to describe the context of some claims and note how such a polemic is unhelpful to actual science:

2 paragraphs regarding the more outlandish proposition by Montagnier and then the lab leak

Ce « fait troublant » aurait donc dû rester anecdotique. Néanmoins, en avril 2020, le Professeur Luc Montagnier, Prix Nobel de physiologie ou médecine pour sa contribution à la découverte du VIH, défraie la chronique en proclamant que ces insertions ne résulteraient pas d’une recombinaison naturelle ou d’un accident, mais d’un vrai travail de génétique, effectué intentionnellement, vraisemblablement dans le cadre de recherches visant à développer des vaccins contre le VIH. Ces affirmations ont été immédiatement contestées par un grand nombre de scientifiques, qui ont rétorqué que les séquences similaires entre VIH et SARS-CoV-2 étaient tellement courtes (une trentaine de nucléotides sur un génome qui en compte 30 000) que leur ressemblance était vraisemblablement fortuite. La controverse s’est amplifiée, dans un contexte politique tendu où le président des États-Unis accusait la République populaire de Chine d’avoir laissé échapper le virus manipulé d’un laboratoire P4 à Wuhan… Ce type de polémique ne favorise pas une analyse sereine des faits. De façon paradoxale, à ce jour, aucune analyse approfondie n’a été publiée concernant l’origine de ces insertions. Des approches de bioinformatique et de phylogénie moléculaire sont pourtant susceptibles de nous apporter un éclairage intéressant, comme nous le montrons ci-dessous.

They conclude by saying that on the basis of existing evidence (at the time), it was difficult making a definitive statement on the subject, but they note that the route to prove the zoonotic origin is much more likely:

2 more paragraphs

L’origine animale du virus reste problématique. Une piste serait d’intensifier la collecte d’échantillons chez des espèces sauvages ou domestiques. L’étrange puzzle recombinatoire qu’est le génome de SARS-CoV-2 reste une énigme… Il nous faudra sans doute le résoudre pour comprendre ses origines. Même les souches les plus proches de SARS-CoV-2 (RATG13, RmYN02 pour la chauve-souris et MP789 pour le pangolin) présentent un taux de différences avec le génome de SARS-CoV-2 beaucoup plus élevé que ce qu’on attendrait chez un virus qui aurait été à l’origine de la dissémination humaine. La découverte de virus animaux présentant une très forte similarité avec SARS-CoV-2 fournirait un élément décisif pour valider son origine naturelle. [...] Sur base des données actuelles (voir Tableau I), il est actuellement difficile de statuer à propos de l’émergence du SARS-CoV-2 et de déterminer s’il est le fruit d’une transmission zoonotique naturelle ou d’une fuite accidentelle à partir de souches expérimentales. Quelle que soit son origine, l’étude des mécanismes d’évolution et des processus moléculaires impliqués dans l’émergence de ce virus pandémique est et restera essentielle afin d’élaborer des stratégies préventives, thérapeutiques et l’adaptation des souches vaccinales.

There's a full translation (done by the authors?) submitted here, which entirely avoids the questions of whether the other journal is a MEDRS ("biology" and "chemistry" are too vague concepts, and the fact it published the junk papers by Sirotkin et al. isn't helpful). Also August 2020 is a fair bit ago: it was before the WHO report, ... One source wouldn't be enough to override the others ones, which argue overwhelmingly against, nor to change the status of the lab leak to something more than a "possible but unaccepted theory". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:46, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

It's credible/reliable for certain types of background information, but not for WP:MEDRS-related claims. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

And here is another science review from April 2021 which discusses the current state of affairs of scientific knowledge concerning the virus' origin. The relevant quote:[10]

"From scientific point of view, before we would have obtained solid and convincing evidence to prove its true origin, we could not rule out the following possibilities (1) naturally occurring, (2) unintentionally made and leaked out of the lab, and (3) a combination/extension of (1) and (2), including under-appreciated or unassessed interactions between the man-made and the natural world. Ms. Angela L. Rasmussen recently published a short comment titled “On the origins of SARS-CoV-2” to appeal to the stakeholders in public health—scientists, clinicians and, most importantly, members of the public to understand or study the origins of SARS-CoV-2 using an evidence-driven approach (Rasmussen, 2021). Unfortunately, there is insufficient evidence to prove that it came from natural evolution, neither is there sufficient evidence to prove that it was intentionally made and leaked out of a laboratory. SARS-COV-2 is different enough from the closest published natural strain that it is very unlikely to have been engineered from that strain, but it cannot exclude the possibility that the immediate precursor is an unpublished and unacknowledged natural strain that was in the possession of a laboratory, and we cannot rule out the possibility that some strains could naturally evolved further in an environment of artificially imposed evolutionary pressure or under some unknown extreme natural evolutionary conditions. Compelling evidence of natural origin would be the discovery in nature of the immediate precursors, which has not been done."

"There is an extensive history of pathogen emergence by natural routes: most novel viral pathogens that have caused epidemics or pandemics in humans have emerged naturally from wildlife reservoirs. Therefore, prevailing view among many scientists is that this virus could found its way into the human host through a series of unpleasant and unexpected encounters with animals (Rasmussen, 2021) although the true origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still hotly debated and unresolved."

This is a science review addressing biotechnology and biosafety. It is titled "Advances in Synthetic Biology and Biosafety Governance". For people with MDs this review will seem off point since it is not in MEDLINE, but this review by Chinese scientists from Beijing is completely on point. Biotechnology, biosafety, and synthetic biology are all relevant to the unknown origin of this virus. --Guest2625 (talk) 04:51, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Frontiers is a dubious publisher. See User:JzG/Predatory/F - "Likely or proven predatory open access Promotion of fringe theories"... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:13, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Origins of SARS-CoV-2

Please help to reconcile the contradictory claims documented at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Origins of SARS-CoV-2. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:18, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Letter in Science calls for investigation of theory

Eighteen scientists submitted a letter to Science, a top peer-reviewed journal, calling for further investigation into the theory. ([11]) They write: "...more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. ... the two theories [natural emergence and lab leak] were not given balanced consideration [in the WHO report]... Notably, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus commented that the report's consideration of evidence supporting a laboratory accident was insufficient and offered to provide additional resources to fully evaluate the possibility. ... As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general, the United States and 13 other countries, and the European Union that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data." I'm not getting involved in the Wiki-bureaucracy, but this page, as written, seems woefully out of touch with the current scientific conversation. 67.245.37.188 (talk) 19:18, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed until now that none of the various open letters (with this being the latest) seem to be referenced on this page. It seems reasonable to have a Scientists' calls for investigations to go alongside International policitians' calls for investigations. Does anyone have a list of the previous open letters, along with any other major group statements that don't fit in the existing categories? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:44, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I still don't think we need to list open letters in the article, but this may definitively prove wrong those editors who insist that all reliable sources say that a lab leak is purely a conspiracy theory. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:48, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I feel like, if they're going to go anywhere, it's this article. And they're probably notable, even if we pull just a representative handful (preferably one like this one in a reputable journal with signers from exclusively relevant fields, not the self-pub with engineers and physicists) and place them with relatively low prominence in the article (as befits their seeming minority status). Bakkster Man (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The NY Times has a very good article about this letter [12]. The scientists are notable and with related expertise. Not sure why people keep treating this as a fringe conspiracy theory. There's even a Nobel prize winning virologist who called into question the veracity of the natural origin theory. -Solid Reign (talk) 20:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

There's a lot of confusion between fringe (which this letter is) and conspiracy (which this letter is not), no doubt made worse by some advocates (not these signers) pushing a bioweapon conspiracy theory that's different from the scenario considered by the WHO. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't like the word fringe, since it's used to describe pseudoscience and to discredit theories. There's publications in many important magazines and newspapers about it. It might not be the most accepted theory, but the natural origin theory is not established science, this is a developing event. Completely agree about how this is exarcerbated by the bioweapon conspiracy theory. -Solid Reign (talk) 14:28, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think this letter is fringe in the way we use that term here on wikipedia, if it was the letter would not have been published in nature. There is a difference between minority viewpoints and fringe ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:12, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Solid Reign and Horse Eye's Back: I refer specifically to the description in WP:FRINGE, which is quite broad. Specifically, I categorize this letter and the theory it asks for more consideration of in the alternative theoretical formulations category described there. Unfortunately, there's not a clean WL shortcut to differentiate alternate theories from pseudocience and questionable science. I started a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#Add shortcuts to better refer to specific fringe categories to try and resolve this. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:07, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Some more context "Top researchers are calling for a real investigation into the origin of covid-19". These are literally giants in the field and probably the top expert on the subject Ralph Baric saying WP:NOLABLEAK is not science. Dinglelingy (talk) 21:51, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Also at the Nytimes [13] the letter is clearly notable and should be covered in this article, alongside the April pro-lab leak open letter, which also received widespread coverage. As these are just letters I don't think the actual prose regarding the origin should be changed though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm significantly less comfortable with that April letter (bare link here). Not only is it self-pub instead of a letter to a respected journal, but some of the co-signers are... weird, with at least four engineers co-signing. I'm not willing to put nearly as much weight on a letter that can't find signers with a relevant background, it comes across as padding the numbers. Not to mention being led by a self-described "Technology Futurist, Geopolitics Expert, Social Entrepreneur, Sci-Fi Novelist, Keynote Speaker", let's stick with the journal published letters. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

We could add something like "The call for further investigation was echoed by a few scientists", citing the Science letter and reactions thereto. Saying "Some scientists disputed the prevailing view via open letters in X and Y" would be inappropriate, because "plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:20, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The situation brings up the minor detail of WP:V versus what is actually true. What is Wikipedia about? If we are following WP:V, then WP:NOLABLEAK is correct. If we are looking at evidence, interpreting it as a trained investigator would do, then the LL hypothesis is by far the best fit to the facts. I'm abstaining from offering any opinion about what the text should be, because the truth-versus-verifiability question is so obvious. Do we want to follow our policies, or to give fair treatment to what is almost certainly true about a critical question of our time? That's the question. I can't in good conscience say that we should ignore WP, as this is the wrong forum to make such a decision. But I equally can't in good conscience say here that we should give a misleading impression to our readers. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:50, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:TRUTH says we don't give a fig what is "true", since, especially in today's world of "alternative facts"..., "truth" can be different according to whom you ask. WP:V is long-standing policy, and no, I am entirely unwilling to compromise on that very basic thing, especially not to give "fair treatment" (see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS) to a hypothesis so far rejected by relevant sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:57, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Do we want to follow our policies, or to give fair treatment to what is almost certainly true about a critical question of our time? That depends what you mean by 'give fair treatment', and is the thing we're going to be struggling to determine up until a definitive source is found. The most authoritative mainstream sources say the lab leak is "extremely unlikely", making those who believe it is the most likely explanation the WP:FRINGE. Between that and WP:DUE, it seems clear to me that the fringe perspective clearly has sufficient prominent adherents to deserve mention (at the least here, if not on other COVID articles), but it has to be placed in context that it's a minority opinion. Whether right or not, it remains the minority for now (see the WP:FRINGE example of continental drift for a former fringe theory that became mainstream once evidence of the underlying mechanism was discovered) and needs to be presented as such. Of course, the devil is in the details... Bakkster Man (talk) 00:44, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The NY Times coverage of the letter is top-notch, great balance (we would call it NPOV). We should take that as a model on how to address the Voldemort- like topic of lab leak. Forich (talk) 23:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The NYT coverage is WP:MEDPOP, which is prone to false balance and non-scientific reporting. The letter is essentially the equivalent of an opinion piece, so WP:PRIMARY for the opinion of its authors. It's not sufficient balance to counter the MEDRS which say otherwise, and it does not change the status of the lab leak (which is, depending how kind you want to be, somewhere between an unfounded and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory and a possible hypothesis which has been rejected by the vast majority of relevant sources). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:54, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Per the MEDRS-source WHO origin study, the 'collected from bats and inadvertently release' scenario is clearly a 'plausible but unlikely' hypothesis. That's plainly what our strongest source says, and to suggest otherwise merely prolongs and confuses discussion. And unless I've missed something, that's the hypothesis this letter refers to.

It's the intention engineering/release that's the conspiracy theory, and this letter doesn't touch it. Some of the signers have been outspoken in their opposition of those conspiracies. Bakkster Man (talk) 00:49, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:TRUTH#Meaning of "truth" in different subject areas: Wikipedia should avoid untruth, even if it appears in otherwise apparently nearly reliable sources. But, it's inconceivable that anyone could notice, or that long-accepted policies could be in direct contradiction to one another . . . Unsigned comment by Adoring nanny

The broader section of WP:TRUTH#Natural_sciences needs to be taken as a whole. In natural sciences, there is a degree of factuality that is hard to dispute, we are dealing with a topic about which there is a degree of dispute. Besides factuality, natural sciences also have conventions or customs, and speculation and opinion, and this letter is indeed an unreviewed opinion, speculating on what amount of weight to give to the truth of one hypothesis or another. Specifically, one arguing against what we can reliably source is the mainstream opinion. We don't yet know what the truth will be, only what most sources claim is most likely. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree on being cautious on citing NYTimes (I never thought I'd say this! they are solid RS for everything else), and I only advocate to follow them closely in this instance: a secondary source that summarizes the Science letter. Here is a particular balanced phrase they used:

[The authors of the letter] said they strove to articulate a wait-and-see viewpoint that they believe is shared by many scientists.

. In citing the lab leak hypothesis with due weight, this phrase looks concise and NPOV to me. I ping @Bakkster Man: to consider a similar approach in the entries he is drafting. Forich (talk) 02:33, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure the sandboxed description of hypotheses is the right place to evaluate the likelihoods of the scenarios, only a bare explanation of the claim itself. I still think this is better put in something like a Investigations into the origin of COVID-19#Other scientists' calls for investigations section. Perhaps between The Lancet COVID-19 Commission task force and Chinese government. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Science claims lableak is not conspiracy theory

In light of what has been published in Science from the Gotha of Virology and Genetic Engineering, I ask you if it is possible to add these elements and if, moreover, it is possible to remove in all related Wikipedia articles the definition of conspiracy theory when discussing a potential laboratory spillover.

"Investigate the origins of COVID-19 | Science" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1 Francesco espo (talk) 22:54, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Please keep the conversation about this letter to the section immediately above. Bakkster Man (talk) 23:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Worth considerng?

Added the following to the main article but was reverted - worth considering? => "On 14 May 2021, scientists reported that "Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable.", and urge for an evidence-based clarification of the origin of the COVID-19 virus." - Comments Welcome - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 02:55, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

References

@Drbogdan: It was reverted because there's an entire section about this right above which you somehow managed to miss, including many concerns about FALSEBALANCE and how best to do it :) I've put in a better wording which seems more thorough than just focusing on the lab leak... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: - Thanks for your comments, for noting the discussion above and for adding better wording - it's all appreciated - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 03:04, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

FWIW - News (05/19/2021) from "Politico" also seems relevant to the article - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 08:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Not too helpful. We can't cite it in the article (WP:MEDPOP), and most of what's being said just echoes what we already have (unsurprising the three 'likely' voices are Chan, Relman, and Ebright). We have better sources for everything said here. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:21, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

References

CDC Director testifies: "Certainly a lab-based origin is one possibility."

Once the head of the CDC testifies under oath that there's a real chance the virus escaped from a lab—"Certainly a lab-based origin is one possibility"—it strikes me the time has come to stop calling it a "conspiracy theory" and quit claiming that there's a "scientific consensus" that it was zoonotic in origin. No science expert here—just using common sense. Elle Kpyros (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

The actual CSPAN transcript shows her replies: "THIS HAS BEEN STUDIED BY THE W.H.O." and "I DON'T BELIEVE I'VE SEEN ENOUGH INDIVIDUAL DATA FOR ME TO BE ABLE TO COMMENT ON THAT." So thanks for pointing us to the director of a major public health body putting their confidence in the WHO's origin study, this is why we consider it to be the mainstream consensus.

When pressed by Senator Kennedy (who was obviously fishing for the lab answer), she gave a broad possibility, which basically mirrored what the WHO and most others are saying: inadvertent release from a lab is a possibility (with a variety of assessments of likelihood), deliberate bio-engineering of the virus (the only thing we specifically refer to on this page as a conspiracy theory) has been ruled out and director Walensky didn't address this possibility. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:16, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: (and others) re quote: "deliberate bio-engineering of the virus (the only thing we specifically refer to on this page as a conspiracy theory) has been ruled out"
Seems related => Seems Chinese virologists were studying how a bat virus could enter human cells by successfully creating (bio-engineering?) bat virus mutations that apparently were capable of infecting human cells - as early as 2015? - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 17:54, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

The WHO said "We did not consider the hypothesis of deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome", citing "While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding7,11. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation." [14] Bakkster Man (talk) 18:28, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that there seems to be a pretty significant difference when sources talk about "deliberate bioengineering" and "serial passage". The plausible side of the "inadvertent leak" hypothesis is serial passage while growing the virus in culture. The deliberate bioengineering that's dismissed by reliable sources is generally the "intentional creation of a bioweapon" conspiracy. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:36, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Undisclosed Wuhan lab workers sickened in Nov 2019?

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed

To avoid duplicate discussions, now that this is centralised at RSN
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/wuhan-lab-staff-sought-hospital-care-before-covid-19-outbreak-disclosed-wsj-2021-05-23/ 205.175.106.86 (talk) 23:18, 23 May 2021 (UTC) Recent News (05/23/2021) re possible Covid virus lab leak reported in The Wall Street Journal - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References See here for some concerns about this. Here might be a better place to mention it, but given that the source says that "A State Department fact sheet released near the end of the Trump administration had said "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 common seasonal illnesses."", the best we could add, if it was on-topic, would be "Some researchers at the WIV sought hospital treatment for an illness in late 2019." - putting it in, however, would create a false impression that this is directly related (that the illness is COVID), which isn't quite exact, and would also be a bit NOTNEWSish (we're better off waiting for some time to see if these rumours are more than just rumours; there are some doubts about the strength of the report: "The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed a range of views about the strength of the report's supporting evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed "further investigation and additional corroboration.""). After all, there's WP:NORUSH. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Give it a rest, guys. If you don't trust the WHO report because of the possibility of Chinese interference, you sure as heck shouldn't trust a "US Intelligence report" for the same risk of interference. Unless and until there's a source indicating it was actually COVID, it shouldn't go here. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Looking at the recent publications, one should realize that zoonotic diseases (such as that one) can be studied in labs and be easily leaked from labs. But unfortunately, there are no real facts/data, "negative" or "positive". And this is for a very good reason: as was noted by many [15], "One of the challenges in developing any certainty is access to the lab itself. China delayed access to international investigators for months after the initial outbreak, virtually guaranteeing that the lab had been deep-cleaned before any forensic analysis could be done, and investigators were also not allowed to view original data logs that scientists say would be critical to understanding the virus' origins. One critical avenue to finding an answer would be to run genetic sequencing on the original samples that staff at the Wuhan lab were working on. But "the Chinese are never going to allow that," said one person familiar with the underlying intelligence. And that is fact. Can someone reasonably view this almost as a self-admission of guilt? Yes, sure. My very best wishes (talk) 14:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC) FWIW - more recently - Dr. Fauci now "not convinced" the Covid virus occurred naturally? - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:06, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Yes, and? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:30, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References @Bakkster Man: (and others) - Thank you for your comment - seems to add weight (professional/academic/insider-level) that the "lab leak orgin" is not "ruled out" (or possibly even "unlikely"), and continues to be a serious concern among those possibly aware of the best relevant information(s) at the moment - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Drbogdan, nobody's said it's been "ruled out" yet, and as I've explained to you before saying "I'm not convinced it was natural" does not imply "not unlikely" as you try and say it does here. Dr. Fauci was never convinced it occurred naturally - and none of us are - because to convince scientists takes proof and lots of evidence/data - which has already been said is going to take years for COVID-19. That doesn't change the fact that all available evidence strongly suggests zoonotic origin, and if we had to pick (which scientists don't like to do regardless) the zoonotic origin is still the most likely. This isn't to mention that the question was leading Fauci to respond that way in the first place - Fauci has never to my knowledge said he was "confident" that it developed naturally - it's the same as saying "are you still beating your wife" - either way you answer, you give credence to the idea that you ever beat your wife. All in all a poor interview that can't overrule his other comments on the issue just based on a loaded question. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:17, 24 May 2021 (UTC) @Berchanhimez: Thanks for your comments - and clarifications (well stated imo) - they're *greatly* appreciated - yes - *entirely* agree - no problem whatsoever - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC) @Drbogdan: First, please reread the article before asking it be rewritten, because it absolutely does not "rule out" the possibility. Failure to do so is disrespectful to the level of care others have taken to improve the article. While articles can always improve and mistakes can be made, such an egregious oversight of content clearly already in the article (with stronger sourcing) is completely unproductive. See also, WP:READFIRST, WP:STEWARDSHIP. Second, the source information discussed in this section (the WSJ published intel report) is neither "professional" nor "academic" in nature. Third, you're advocating that we use narrow sources in order to WP:SYNTH a WP:PROFRINGE argument, which is completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Fourth, please be more clear when you share a link how you intend it to improve the article, as this is WP:NOTAFORUM. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Seems relevant - re current views of Scott Gottlieb - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2021 (UTC) References Key word circumstantial. If you really want to prove something you can find circumstantial evidence for almost anything - heck, I can find circumstantial evidence that the moon is made of cheese if I wanted to. News reports are not going to ever be relevant for this sort of topic - the origin of the virus is at this point biomedical information that requires MEDRS, and it won't become "historical" information for another 5+ years at least - thus unless there's new MEDRS compliant sources there's no sense accumulating sensationalist news. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Thought for other editors, when does this pattern of editing become WP:PROFRINGE and WP:IDHT that requires warning/sanction? I feel like we're close to that line, if we haven't crossed it already. Particularly given this is immediately after a request to be more clear with 'look at this' type comments. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC) Just added some more detail to the Trump admin section. I think it's irresponsible to have that quote from Asher without the context added to it by the WSJ piece. Asher says "you don't normally go to the hospital with influenza" but the WSJ article contextualizes that quote with "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."--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:44, 25 May 2021 (UTC) FWIW - not promoting any particulular viewpoint - and, yes, I get the point - but a possible relevant timeline was recently published (WaPo; 05/25/2021) that may (or may not) be worthy in helping to improve the article - none of the timeline information may be new - nor WP:MEDRS level - but nevertheless may be worthy in helping to clarify (and/or at least to better support) relevant timeline notions in the main article I would think - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC) References

Now at reliable sources noticeboard

• See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Lab Leak Again. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

A questionable consensus

The following sentence and the mobillized sources are worth discussing: "The scientific consensus is that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting". This sentence is based on Andersen et al. using RaTG13, the closest known virus to SARS-CoV-2, but which has been exclusively studied by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is therefore no possibility for the rest of the scientific community to verify the information transmitted about it. Second, for Latinne et al. this is a paper that was primarily written by members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the EcoHealth Alliance, which has funded research on bat coronaviruses in that lab. But most importantly, RaTG13, again unverifiable to the rest of the scientific community, is used. So there is a problem in the diversity of sources cited here, but more generally, in the verifiability of the scientific information itself. Hence the calls in the press and Science to be able to verify this information.CyberDiderot (talk) 17:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

CyberDiderot, yes, and we accurately describe the hinderance of China into the investigation. The consensus is still that it was a zoonotic origin - there is no current evidence that is widely accepted and agreed with to suggest otherwise. The scientific consensus among all scientists is that it was likely zoonotic - even if there are a few who insist it wasn't based on flimsy evidence and illogical leaps of faith. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have misinterpreted the statements regarding RaTG13 as the sole justification either for this sentence, or the majority consensus view. RaTG13 is just the most similar to SARS-CoV-2 of many similar CoVs found in bats. We also don't claim that RaTG13 is the ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, it's also possible the ancestor virus is undetected. If you can point to a particular item you think remains unclear, I can clarify the article. Bakkster Man (talk)

WP:RS/AC says: A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view.... Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Could you point to where the cited sources make any direct claims about zoonotic origin being the scientific consensus? I have not been able to find that claim supported anywhere in the sources. Stonkaments (talk) 00:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:NOLABLEAK has plenty of MEDRS papers saying that the zoonotic origin is the most likely and that "scientific evidence does not support this accusation of laboratory release". I have not been able to find any MEDRS source which disputes this. Younes et al., Rev Med Virol say that "Researchers proposed two hypotheses for the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2: (1) Natural selection may have occurred in an animal host before transmission to mankind; and (2) natural selection of viruses may have occurred in humans after zoonotic transmission." Osuchowski et al., Lancet Respir Med similarly say " The most plausible origin of SARS-CoV-2 is natural selection of the virus in an animal host followed by zoonotic transfer." This letter in the Lancet is more explicit, saying "Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11, 12"; although, given the lack of conflicting MEDRS sources, I'm not even sure it's necessary . RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've just done a big search for further recent papers about COVID origins. There's nothing as in-depth as previously. The few papers I could find only repeat the same things as previously. [16] says "SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in the human population from a zoonotic spillover event."; so that's rather clear that this is the favoured position. This simply says "SARS-CoV-2 was originated from zoonotic coronaviruses and confirmed as a novel beta-coronavirus [...]" as an unequivocal statement of fact (whether we should do that is a bit more questionable - at least it lends more support to the idea). Other relevant articles mention the zoonotic origin as a matter of fact or very high likelihood without explicitly saying that it is "thought" of that it is a consensus. Of about 100 articles I could find running a query "covid AND origin" on Pubmed (limited to MEDLINE journals, reviews and systematic reviews, from 2021 only) - of which I read more than the abstract (or part thereof) for about a tenth of that, only one mentioned anything but the zoonotic origin (and what it did mention was the man-made theory, which it clearly marked as bollocks). As to your WP:OR criticism of papers by Andersen, ..., I'll note that that is entirely beyond our remit. One criteria for determining the reliability of sources is their use by other sources (WP:USEBYOTHERS), and the paper by Andersen et al. which you're referring to seems to be extremely well cited, more than 1000 times. Your claims about conflicts of interests and RaTG13 are all common talking points of lab leak proponents, but they don't change anything as far as MEDRS are concerned. Again, I failed to find any source which disputes that the origin of the virus is anything but zoonotic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I’m not seeing an explicit statement that a consensus exists in any of those, most likely =/= consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The letter in the Lancet is just that, although of course it needs to be judged as a primary, opinion piece (though it's from subject experts - since we include the letter about "further investigations", we might as well include this one). I'm not seeing any statement that there is a scientific (as opposed to political or otherwise) dispute over this, either. There are the calls for further investigation reported in the press, but that's already mentioned. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The Lancet letter was published in February 2020 and was clearly politically motivated (former NY Times science reporter Donald McNeil says that, at that time, "the screaming was so loud that it drowned out serious discussion"[17]). If that's the only source making a direct claim about the scientific consensus, I believe statements regarding a scientific consensus in the article need to be removed/revised. Stonkaments (talk) 14:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

That's a WP:SELFPUB piece (on medium, a self-publishing site) from a journalist. Anyway, as said, I still haven't seen a source which says that the preferred hypothesis is not zoonotic origin. If there is a legitimate dispute over which hypothesis is the favoured one, you should be able to cite MEDRS papers which argue that the lab leak is more likely. Otherwise this is just a minor quibble over wording. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:41, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't dispute that most scientists believe zoonotic origin is more likely—I agree with that. But I think calling zoonotic origin the scientific consensus is a step too far (per WP:RS/AC). I would support some variation of the suggestion below ("Most research published up until X has supported the theory that it is a zoonotic virus..."). Stonkaments (talk) 15:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Strangely enough I agree... But only that we shouldn’t be saying "scientific consensus” when there doesn’t appear to actually be one yet... The vast majority of work on the subject is still in progress and from what I’ve seen pretty much all sources treat currently published findings as preliminary. We can say something along the lines of “Most research published up until X has supported the theory that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting” but we shouldn’t get ahead of our skis. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

We could remove "consensus" if it really poses problems to use that particular word. Although, given what MEDRS say, we'd need to write something like "The vast majority of scientific research finds the current evidence supports a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Do we need to split the statement? There does appear to be consensus that there was not deliberate release or deliberate bioengineering of SARS-CoV-2 for release, the latter has been ruled out by other scientists following analyses of the genome, as per the WHO-China report. By extension, there appears to be consensus that the virus descends from a natural virus, with the exact pathway for the evolutionary gap and precise point of zoonosis being up for debate. Given this, I'd suggest it's only the "arose from bats in a natural setting" that's not yet fully settled (as growth in lab culture is not a "natural setting"). I suspect we can find a clear, concise way to explain this. For reference, here's the current language in the Investigations section: There are multiple proposed explanations for how SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into, and evolved adaptations suited to, the human population. There is significant evidence and agreement that the most likely original viral reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 is horseshoe bats, with the closest known viral relative being RaTG13. The evolutionary distance between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is estimated to be between 20 and 90 years, which each origin hypothesis attempts to explain in a different way. These scenarios continue to be investigated in order to identify the definitive origin of the virus. Better synchronizing these two paragraphs should be done. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm taking a stab at rewriting this, as we have two sentences in the lede which duplicate each other and depend mostly on older references. One thing I'm reconsidering from above is whether a lab leak would be considered zoonosis. The zoonosis article doesn't include lab culture, so I'm hesitant to make that connection now. So I think we need to go more with the 'emerged from an animal-borne virus' or similar. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Most sources say, without qualification, that COVID is either A) zoonotic or B) very likely zoonotic. We can alter the text to avoid the use of consensus if there are no sources which describe this as such (although many state "it is believed", "it is thought", ...), but we certainly shouldn't sacrifice the factual accuracy of the text because of that. A proper summary of the sources could be the sentence I proposed, "The vast majority of scientific research finds the current evidence supports a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting." RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Take a look at the current wording. Room to improve, I'm sure, but I think it's an improvement from before. We could add a sentence to the first paragraph about "zoonosis as a natural setting", and with the period between it and the sentence about the consensus I think that avoids any confusion about what exactly is uncertain. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

How about simply removing this sentence: "The scientific consensus is that the virus descends from an animal-borne virus." It essentially repeats the sentence that follows ("SARS-CoV-2 has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, suggesting it emerged from a bat-borne virus."), only with the more fraught wording of "the scientific consensus", and "animal-borne" versus "bat-borne" virus, which is more confusing to my ear. Stonkaments (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Strong disagree on changing the wording from "consensus." I think the sources are clear that it's a consensus. Even most of the scientists who wrote the letter to Science arguing for more investigation have admitted they believe zoonosis is the most likely scenario. We are betraying the reality and caving to non-RS if we remove the idea of consensus. There was a consensus early on, and it has not changed because there has been no new data.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:27, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Physiologically, there can no longer be a consensus since the pillars of zoonotic theory have fallen:

1) After 15 months and 80,000 animals tested, no intermediate host was found, SARS1 requested 4 months, MERS 9; 2) Ralph Baric admitted that himself could manipulate a virus with seamless technologies, not allowing anyone to verify if it is artificial; 3) With the last 3 doctoral theses of WIV students coming to light that demonstrate the presence in their archives of various unpublished sars-related backbones and their pioneering works with seamless technologies the same signatories of the letter for Science have revealed that they're no longer able to support natural theory with greater conviction; 4) The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other.

Francesco espo (talk) 00:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, first off this talk page is not the place for these discussions, it's the place for conversations about RS and what merits inclusion in the article. But since you so nicely numbered your points, I want to dispel some of the confusion. There are quite a few things you just said that are not true. I have a PhD in virology and have spent a great deal of time looking into those questions for academic and non academic purposes. But you don't have to listen to me, there are RS that back up my claims. For one, SARS1 took 1.5 years to find in civets and then a further 1 year until 2005 to connect to bats. Secondly, it took them much less time with MERS because the government of Saudia Arabia wanted much more to find the culprit animal so they could restore tourism to the country. They did a massive scale zoological review of every livestock animal, something China has not signaled any interest in doing. We need China to open its borders. But more to the point, there are two things that make the SARS1 and MERS situations distinct from SARS2:

A) Those two viruses have very high penetrance (meaning pretty much everybody who gets the virus gets sick)

B) Those two viruses had initial outbreaks with much lower case counts (which makes it easier to contact trace)

A and B make the epidemiological investigation process much easier. Makes it easier to trace to patient zero and find the suspect animal reservoir. Also worth saying that China hasn't allowed in international investigators to do that kind of sampling. As far as I can tell, no one is actually looking at the moment. Maybe internal Chinese scientists? But still very unclear. The way the Chinese government has locked down this work, and restricted the movements of Shi Zheng-li and other scientists in China, I doubt anyone is looking at the moment. Also worth saying it took 20-odd years to find Ebola (it should be quicker with SARS1) but experts absolutely have not said a natural reservoir should already have been found. That would be wild. Thirdly, I would love to see your sources on point 3, because I don't believe it is true from my knowledge of the subject. They may have had viruses in the freezer they hadn't published yet, but I have seen no evidence that they were conducting gain of function research on those viruses, such as manipulating backbones to make pandemic-potential viruses etc. That would be huge news, if so. Thirdly, several signatories of that letter have come out and said they do not believe equal weight should be given to the two possibilities, that they still believe the zoonotic theory is the most likely, but that they do think further investigation is warranted. I blame shoddy wording in that letter. But the authors do not believe what you've said they believe. To reiterate, this really is not the place for this discussion, but it grinds my gears to leave misinformation unanswered. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is accurate to say that the intermediate host was found within 4 months with SARS COV 1. Animals infected with the virus were found shortly after that virus began to spread, but an animal was not confirmed to be the host until years later. With respect to SARS-COV-2, a number of animals have been found that have been infected with the virus, but none of them have yet to be confirmed to be an intermediate host. Dhawk790 (talk) 01:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment It's true that the scientific consensus is still that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin, and RandomCanadian summed this up well:

This letter in the Lancet is more explicit, saying "Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11,12"

That consensus is not dubious. -Darouet (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

While I agree this remains essentially the consensus (with the WHO report being the item that will be the primary determinant until something significant changes), it would be nice if we could find a more recent source similar to this one from March 2020. I don't want to stop citing this letter without a good replacement, but do find it potentially problematic because it appeared to be part of the chilling effect that limited the legitimate investigations and discussions on the topic. It's partly why, up until the WHO report was released, we made zero mention of the theory as anything but a conspiracy. So our view of the consensus has, at least, changed somewhat since this letter. So again, while I don't disagree with our conclusion on the mainstream view, a more recent source validating the view would be beneficial by being a cleaner, more recent reference. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• The Science letter specifies that equal weight must be given to both hypotheses as long as there is no evidence to lean towards one or the other. This is not what the letter says. There's a significant difference between there were no findings in clear support of either a natural spillover or a lab accident and "there's no evidence", and between balanced consideration and "equal weight". Particularly the latter, weight in investigation (including access to raw data) is different from wikipedia WP:DUE weight. The Science letter is calling for what we all want, more conclusive data on the topic. But that letter alone doesn't really change the way we can write about the topic given WP:V. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Inclusion of seroprevalence studies

There have been at least two studies that have shown elevated seroprevalence of antibodies for the COVID-19 virus outside of China in late 2019. I was wondering if there is any justification for the inclusion of these studies as they suggest earlier emergence/potential emergence outside of China.

Apolone, G., Montomoli, E., Manenti, A., Boeri, M., Sabia, F., Hyseni, I., ... & Pastorino, U. (2020). Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy. Tumori Journal, 0300891620974755. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0300891620974755

Basavaraju, S. V., Patton, M. E., Grimm, K., Rasheed, M. A. U., Lester, S., Mills, L., ... & Stramer, S. L. (2020). Serologic testing of US blood donations to identify severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)–reactive antibodies: December 2019–January 2020. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472 Dhawk790 (talk) 18:49, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Dhawk790, please see WP:MEDRS for why we don't take the results of single studies and include them in articles - not just limited to COVID-19 but across the medical field. If you can find a systematic review that discusses these studies and provides conclusions, then it can be considered - but until then, this would be undue weight to include at this time. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The first study had some methodological issues (which is why we usually wait for secondary studies). The WHO was investigating it further to either confirm or dispute the results, but I haven't seen anything on the subject. The second study is probably accurate, but the same issues of confirmation would apply. Even then, it's probably more suited to COVID-19 pandemic in the United States than this article. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:56, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I think that is a good policy. There is another similar study from France (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00716-2?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst_20210207&error=cookies_not_supported&error=cookies_not_supported&code=c90f16eb-0525-4e2e-8741-515ef0dddea6&code=2c4ebc11-3dd8-4b83-ba64-054e72c6714a) so maybe there will start being some deeper digging, like review.

Am I understanding the policy right that it would be potentially acceptable to include these studies with the articles about the pandemic in those countries. Thanks again. Dhawk790 (talk) 19:00, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Potentially yes, but likely not acceptable. On Wikipedia, we tend to do a "follow, not lead" approach to things - and even more so in medical topic areas. Unless a study is "groundbreaking" or extremely huge/well-ran, we tend not to include single studies anywhere within the medical topics on Wikipedia - we wait for reviews, systematic reviews, Cochrane analyses, etc. - secondary sources that examine a large number of sources and come to conclusions based on more than just one study. Yes, this means that we can't always be on the "breaking edge" of things on Wikipedia - but it also means that we don't include potentially harmful/incorrect medical information before it's been fully vetted multiple times and considered to be the scientific consensus. The best thing to do would be to start talk page discussions on the articles for the pandemic in those countries if you really think these studies meet the strict criteria in WP:MEDRS for citing a primary source - and then let people discuss there. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again. I will start a discussion in the relevant pages. Dhawk790 (talk) 19:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

There's two things going on here. One is that we usually wait for secondary sources. That means, someone taking multiple primary studies like these and summing up the current state of understanding, or a 'meta analysis' which takes multiple primary studies and tries to distill an overall result from them. So what we're waiting on is something like the WHO or other researchers evaluating this and other studies about antibody prevalence on the strength of the data and coming to a more robust conclusion.

If that happens, depending on the conclusion, it might make more sense for the national articles. This article is about the investigations on exactly when and where the virus jumped to humans and spread. Well before it crossed international borders. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this makes sense. Finding the human jump point may be complicated by potentially earlier transmission, but it still leaves that question opened. Regardless, need more studies/secondary sources for this article. Dhawk790 (talk) 19:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• Primary resources and unreliable for biomedical content. The first source is doubly unreliable given this. Alexbrn (talk) 14:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Anthony Fauci states he is "not convinced" about natural origins hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2

On or about May 25, 2021, in a video interview, the following exchange occurred between Dr. Anthony Fauci and a reporter.

Reporter: There's a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still. Are you still confident that it developed naturally?

Dr. Fauci: No . . . No, I am not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out, to the best of our ability, exactly what happened.

This interview has also been played back and referenced on CNN.

As such, I would suggest a brief update to the Wikipedia article, under the section "United States government", to reflect this apparent position change from the influential Director of the NIAID and chief medical advisor to the US President. 2600:1700:FE20:2390:9008:E887:CAA4:B19B (talk) 04:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that Fauci's statement that he favors further investigation into the origins of the virus needs to be mentioned - there are many, many US officials making statements on this topic, and we can describe any investigations that do actually occur. -Darouet (talk) 05:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And, more importantly, it mirrors the WHO report's conclusion: that it can't be ruled out yet. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:50, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And Most importantly, I don't think Fauci ever actually said he was "100% convinced" of the natural origin. That would be really bad science based on such limited data. It's just the most likely scenario with the limited data we have.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Fauci has clarified his comments: [18]. He is not 100% sure of a natural origin, but he still believes it is "highly likely", just as he has said before. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:05, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the tone of all the articles related to COVID origins need to be reevaluated based on the changing politics around the issue. Serious questions have emerged related to the natural emergence theory. See articles like this one at The Hill.[19] 2601:844:4000:F910:A91A:960F:5B05:A643 (talk) 14:49, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The tone of our articles already did change, after the WHO-China report was published the possibility (albeit still unlikely) of a lab origin was added to multiple articles. But as even The Hill said in the article you linked: "Again, most scientists still believe the virus occurred naturally." As such, we continue to follow WP:FRINGELEVEL: Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

To change the tone of articles about scientific subjects because of political circumstances is a completely crazy idea. Stalin and Trump would have liked it, but those people are not role models for Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the initial coverage by the "reliable sources" was heavily politicized, to the point of suppressing evidence for a lab origin for the virus. If you want scientific articles, you should stick to scientific journals as sources (which I gather are considered too primary for Wikipedia?). Now that the politics has cooled off, the popular media is wondering why they were so quick to condemn the possibility of a leak as "conspiracy theory." 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 12:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks as if you can see only a less reliable part of all sources, namely the non-scientific ones.

Not all scientific articles are primary. Wikipedia's coverage of the subject is, and should be, based on secondary scientific sources. If they are "biased", we cannot do anything about it since they are the least biased thing we can get in principle. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be a confusion around what makes a source good WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Secondary sources are more reliable than primary, peer-reviewed sources have more weight than those without review, etc. I expect this regards the Science letter, which as an unreviewed opinion is citable for this minority opinion is notable for inclusion, not this explanation is more likely. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's a timeline published by Washington Post of what's been going on outside of the popular press on this topic. [20] 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 14:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

A timeline we already know to be flawed. XOR'easter (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WikiProject COVID-19

Please join this broad discussion on how we discuss and explain COVID origins. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

You should include scientific articles from peer-reviewed journals instead of relying on popular media. 2601:844:4000:F910:CC2A:6903:DE36:2C66 (talk) 12:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

A bizarre lack of information regarding the lab leak theory

Given the fact that the origin of the virus has not been determined, it is extremely strange that this article focuses primarily on the theory of natural origin. As of right now there is very little evidence regarding a natural origin, and a growing body of circumstantial evidence pointing to an accidental lab leak. An extremely well researched article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ should be sourced, together with other material, to expand the section of the article regarding the lab leak theory. To do otherwise is to signal a strong political bias towards a narrative which has next to no supporting evidence. Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

my apologies, please replace all uses of the word theory with hypothesis Dmoney1210 (talk) 14:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article isn't as strong as other sources, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. We have (and cite) higher quality sources to explain the theory. We also have many sources indicating it is a minority opinion (even though the minority has good rational reasons for their perspective). As such, WP:GEVAL applies in how we explain the theory (and how much text we use to do so). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is led by a board of accomplished science and security leaders which informs their editorial staff. The article I linked was written by Nicholas Wade who was a writer and editor for the journals Nature and Science. Surely the article is just as valid as propaganda publications like the China Morning Post, mainstream news organizations like ABC news, CNN, Yahoo News, and speculative science entertainment magazines like Popular Science, all of which are referenced in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Nicholas Wade is known for a dubious book on race and intelligence, and has no relevant expertise in virology. His piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal which has no relation to virology and which is not cited much even in its actual field of expertise, is basically an unedited copy of a self-published piece originally on Medium. We have far better sources, like the WHO report and serious academic journals (Nature Medicine and the like) which describe the lab leak as extremely unlikely and not supported by evidence or prior epidemic outbreaks of coronaviruses (SARS, MERS). So no, Wade is not a credible source and we don't WP:FALSEBALANCE. We describe the lab leak for what it is: a minority viewpoint with little backing in academic sources which has gained political attention. See also this recent piece which seems to put the dots on the i's correctly in highlighting the political nature of this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I will also add this article from Nature, which provides a good summary. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01383-3 Dhawk790 (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The question is what more do you want there to be said than what is already in the article? The article already details that the lab leak is considered a valid, if less likely, hypothesis, which appears to be the consensus. If the circumstantial evidence in the Bulletin report is included then it would be justified to included the other circumstantial evidence about the virus potentially not even having originated in Wuhan. Above you can see a discussion about the potential of including that evidence and you can see that it was rejected based on the same criteria that is currently being used to justify the exclusion of some sources, like the Bulletin. There is an ongoing discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biomedical_information) about whether the criteria for what is allowed to be included should be expanded. Depending on the conclusion of that discussion, we may see more evidence for and against the lab leak hypothesis and for and against other potential origin points for the virus included.

EDIT: It is also worth noting that South China Morning Post is not state media. It is an English language paper published in Hong Kong. It's founding occured during the Qing dynasty. That is a common mistake, I think because it has China in its name. If you review their articles, you will find that they are frequently critical of the mainland government. Dhawk790 (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I think the article is missing the following information regarding the lab leak hypothesis:

1) The place of origin. The two closest known relatives of the SARS2 virus were collected from bats living in caves in Yunnan, a province of southern China. If the SARS2 virus had first infected people living around the Yunnan caves, that would strongly support the idea that the virus had spilled over to people naturally. But this isn’t what happened. The pandemic broke out 1,500 kilometers away, in Wuhan. Beta-coronaviruses, the family of bat viruses to which SARS2 belongs, infect the horseshoe bat Rhinolophus affinis, which ranges across southern China. The bats’ range is 50 kilometers, so it’s unlikely that any made it to Wuhan. In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation. If the bat viruses had infected some intermediate host, then you would need a longstanding population of bats in frequent proximity with an intermediate host, which in turn must often cross paths with people. All these exchanges of virus must take place somewhere outside Wuhan, a busy metropolis which so far as is known is not a natural habitat of Rhinolophus bat colonies. The infected person (or animal) carrying this highly transmissible virus must have traveled to Wuhan without infecting anyone else. No one in his or her family got sick. If the person jumped on a train to Wuhan, no fellow passengers fell ill.

2) Natural history and evolution. The coronavirus spike protein, adapted to attack bat cells, needs repeated jumps to another species, most of which fail, before it gains a lucky mutation. In the case of SARS1, researchers have documented the successive changes in its spike protein as the virus evolved step by step into a dangerous pathogen. After it had gotten from bats into civets, there were six further changes in its spike protein before it became a mild pathogen in people. After a further 14 changes, the virus was much better adapted to humans, and with a further four, the the epidemic started. But when you look at SARS2, the virus has changed hardly at all, at least until recently. From its very first appearance, it was well adapted to human cells. Researchers led by Alina Chan of the Broad Institute compared SARS2 with late stage SARS1, which by then was well adapted to human cells, and found that the two viruses were similarly well adapted. “By the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV,”. Even those who think lab origin unlikely agree that SARS2 genomes are remarkably uniform. Baric writes that “early strains identified in Wuhan, China, showed limited genetic diversity, which suggests that the virus may have been introduced from a single source.” A single source would of course be compatible with lab escape, less so with evolution. The uniform structure of SARS2 genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature. The hallmark of lab cultures is uniformity.

3) The furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site sits in the middle of the SARS2 spike protein. Of all known SARS-related beta-coronaviruses, only SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site. All the other viruses have their S2 unit cleaved at a different site and by a different mechanism. A string of amino acids like that of the furin cleavage site is much more likely to be acquired all together through a process known as recombination. Recombination is an inadvertent swapping of genomic material that occurs when two viruses happen to invade the same cell, and their progeny are assembled with bits and pieces of RNA belonging to the other. Beta-coronaviruses will only combine with other beta-coronaviruses but can acquire, by recombination, almost any genetic element present in the collective genomic pool. What they cannot acquire is an element the pool does not possess. And no known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, the class to which SARS2 belongs, possesses a furin cleavage site. Bat SARS-related beta-coronaviruses don’t need a furin cleavage site to infect bat cells, so there’s no great likelihood that any in fact possesses one, and indeed none has been found so far. A predecessor of SARS2 could have been circulating in the human population for months or years until at some point it acquired a furin cleavage site from human cells. It would then have been ready to break out as a pandemic. If this is what happened, there should be traces in hospital surveillance records of the people infected by the slowly evolving virus. But none has so far come to light. According to the WHO, the sentinel hospitals in Hubei province, home of Wuhan, routinely monitor influenza-like illnesses and “no evidence to suggest substantial SARSCoV-2 transmission in the months preceding the outbreak in December was observed.” So it’s hard to explain how the SARS2 virus picked up its furin cleavage site naturally, whether by mutation or recombination. That leaves a gain-of-function experiment. For those who think SARS2 may have escaped At least 11 gain-of-function experiments, adding a furin site to make a virus more infective, are published in the open literature, including [by] Dr. Zhengli Shi, head of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

4) Security and safety of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology: The state of readiness of the The Wuhan Institute of Virology considerably alarmed the State Department inspectors who visited it from the Beijing embassy in 2018. “The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable of January 19, 2018.

5) Dr. Zhengli Shi's experiments on humanized mice: Dr. Zhengli Shi's work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify that for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.) “Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice." It continues “We will use S protein sequence data, ingectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.” What this means is that Dr. Zhengli Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people. The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein. It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

The article cites all of its sources. If the credibility of the article us undermined by the fact that Nicholas Wade published a controversial book then the information concerning the lab leak hypothesis can be cited directly from the sources listed in the article. Dmoney1210 (talk) 19:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comments:

1 is already presented on this page: The proximity of the laboratory to the initial outbreak has led some to speculate that it may be the entry point. RaTG13 was sampled from bats in Yunnan (located roughly 1,300 km (810 mi) away from Wuhan), and there are relatively few bat coronaviruses from Hubei province.

2 and 3 are not explanations exclusive to the lab theory. The 20-90 year evolutionary gap could be explained by undiscovered animal viruses and as yet undiscovered human adaptation (for instance, in a single immunocompromised individual [21]). Same with the furin cleavage site, lack of detection of a similar furin cleavage site to date in a betacoronavirus does not mean it is impossible to evolve naturally (see: [22]). But these are all reasons why we depend on secondary sources collecting primary studies, instead of listing every single paper that ever comes up with a possibility.

4 depends if you have a reliable source and the change won't give undue weight. Right now, nearly equal text is given to the four hypotheses the WHO evaluated (which is a significant rebalance from the WHO's report, which spent very little time on the lab hypothesis). I'd suggest that it's best to maintain that, meaning either adding additional weight to the other hypotheses, or pulling other potentially relevant info from the lab paragraph. The other three hypotheses have other details which have been summarized for brevity, and WP:NPOV means we should treat all four similarly.

5 is purely speculative, disputed by other sources, and has the same level of detail concerns as #4.

While credibility is certainly part of it, giving equal weight to the four hypotheses means we need to be selective about what we present about each of them. That the lab leak has a similar quantity of text (despite the mainstream view being that it's the least likely explanation) should be appreciated as something of a rarity, pushing for greater weight to be given to some theories would likely end up with those the mainstream considers most likely to get more weight (not the lab hypothesis) per WP:GEVAL. As a new editor, you would be well served by reading the policies and guidelines to better understand whether your recommendations are suitable for wikipedia or not. You may also consider editing pages on other topics first, to get a better understanding in a less contentious environment. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Facebook Ends Ban on Posts Asserting Covid-19 Was Man-Made

[23] even the gatekeeping overlords are walking back on this subject. 205.175.106.86 (talk) 00:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC) + [24]

• Good thing we are not Facebook, because mainstream scientists still consider that the "man-made theory" (unlike the "extremely unlikely" lab leak) is ruled out (WHO report; Immunity. 2020 May 19; 52(5): 734–736.; Infect Genet Evol. 2021 Mar 18 : 104812.). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Here's a good read on how social media groupthink played a role in stifling inquiry into the lab-leak theory. They note that "many leading scientists believe [COVID-19] may well have leaked from a lab", and "There has never been a clear expert consensus on the virus’s origins. There were a handful of scientists with unusually robust social-media profiles expressing strong views". Stonkaments (talk) 01:18, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Scientists publishing in peer-reviewed papers have overwhelmingly argued for a natural origin. We favour WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:MEDRS over news reports or social media, for all subjects but especially for heavily complex topics such as the origins of a virus. As for group-think, that might just as well be the case for proponents of the lab leak. Also excellent piece here about politics and how the citing of "intelligence reports" to support a claim dismissed by experts is not unprecedented... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that we should try to rely as much as possible on peer-reviewed research, but news reports often cover aspects of the topic that the peer-reviewed research doesn't address. Also, I'm genuinely curious, what is the WP policy for how to handle research if there are credible concerns of bias in the research due to conflicts of interest? For example, Peter Daszak being a member of the WHO investigation team despite having a close relationship (including providing funding) to the Wuhan lab,[25][26] and virologists more generally having a vested interest in maintaining trust, respectability, and funding for gain-of-function research.[27][28] Stonkaments (talk) 01:43, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  That sounds like the classical conspiracy theory ("the experts and their vested interests don't want you to know about THIS!!!"). We're not here to right great wrongs, and Wikipedia is academically conservative intentionally, because it's a work of reference, not a private investigator or a research paper. If we'd been around in Galileo's time, we would have had to report as the mainstream view that the Sun goes round the Earth, because that is what the reliable sources would have told us. We care for verifiability, not truth. Of course, consensus (academic and on Wikipedia) can change. But as an encyclopedia, we're interested in following that consensus once it's well established in the sources, not leading it. As must have been said multiple times, the burden of proof is on you to show us there are academic sources which contradict the established consensus. Looking on Pubmed, there are plenty of secondary review papers about the origins of Covid, very few of which seem to seriously mention the lab leak (note that this is not an exhaustive search, just an example - conducting a keyword search is much more an involved effort than making one or two queries). There's already this partially annotated bibliography which you're surely aware of; and I'm also personally working on making a full survey of all published papers which match keywords and which seem to be about the relevant topic to see if there is any material that can be found. Until such time that we have solid contradictory sources, we're bound by the existing ones. Also note that it took a whole 14 years before the zoonotic origin of SARS was proven with direct evidence. There's really WP:NORUSH here, and I'd much rather trust the scientists who have spent their whole careers studying this than politicians and pundits who are quick to jump on sensational headlines. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  To clarify: we're not a monolithic, static work either. Significant developments can be covered. As far as I can see, the only significant development has been the amount of political noise over it (WaPo; Guardian; the other Guardian article linked previously; plenty of other sources) and the reaction to the WHO report (already in the article). If you can help find a way to cover this more thoroughly, that's helpful. But we must of course remain vigilant and assess sources for what they are. Newspapers covering politics is entirely within their usual scope and expertise. Newspapers making big, bold claims about science is usually prone to MEDPOP and other issues of distortion and lack of thoroughness/expertise from the writer which are much less prevalent in academic literature. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:13, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I don't find the "conspiracy theory" dismissal very convincing. These are clear, well-documented conflicts of interest, and many reliable sources argue that the lab-leak theory was dismissed prematurely for political reasons. But we must of course remain vigilant and assess sources for what they are. I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. I'd also like to encourage applying WP:NORUSH evenly to both sides―we shouldn't rush to delineate a "scientific consensus" when that hasn't been decided yet. Stonkaments (talk) 02:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  If fellow scientists had reasonable concerns about these "conflicts of interest" (I note that collaboration between experts in the academic world is a common thing), it's unlikely all of these papers (from scientists all over the globe, published in multiple credible journals) would have gotten through peer-review without any mention being made of it. The claim to the contrary, that scientists are not reporting on this because they "have a vested interest in maintaining trust, respectability, and funding for gain-of-function research", is just the classic conspiracy theory. Re. NORUSH - note that nowhere is it written "this is a settled issue". Unlike with SARS, there is no definitive evidence (yet). So we write what sources say, that "The current scientific consensus is that the virus is most likely of zoonotic origin, from bats or another closely-related mammal."; that "Most virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote," that "the March 2021 WHO report on the joint WHO-China study stated that such an explanation is "extremely unlikely"", and that "Definitively proving or disproving a "lab" related origin of the virus is a difficult and lengthy process, and long investigations are required to provide a definitive proof or disproof of any theory of the virus's origin.[27][47]". Doesn't sound like "this has been definitively ruled out" to me, unless I'm missing something. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:10, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  I still don't think it's a crazy conspiracy theory to suggest that scientists are influenced by political pressures; see this article, which says: "scientists...in general were cautious about speaking out. There were 'very intense, very subtle pressures' on them not to push on issues of laboratory biohazards." So the matter of scientists facing political pressures has been mentioned in reliable sources, and I think it could be DUE to include if more reliable sources come out highlighting specific conflicts of interest.
  Recent edits to the article introduced claims such as: "The scientific consensus is that it is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting."—that is the type of definitive statement I am cautioning against at this time. I agree that the quotes you highlighted are more carefully constructed and appropriately attributed, with the possible exception of Most virologists who have studied coronaviruses consider the possibility very remote, which strikes me as an overstep, at least based on the two sources cited for that claim (neither of which makes any claim about what "most virologists" think, nor supports the possibility being "very remote", from what I can see). Stonkaments (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

  Intelligence reports and statements from politicians are even more obvious examples of political pressure so that doesn't help us much. There are plenty of sources which describe the current position as a "scientific consensus" or in words very similar to the above quoted ("Meanwhile, outside of US intelligence circles, the broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event."; "Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus came from nature, various scientific and pseudo-scientific claims have continued to fan the flames of a conspiracy theory that the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab."; "The conspiracy narrative that COVID-19 was created in a Wuhan laboratory is an unsubstantiated narrative that challenges the current scientific consensus on the virus’s origins."). FWIW, that wording has been there nearly unaltered for months and nobody has found a source which challenges this summary.

  It doesn't help that many scientific papers don't mention the lab leak at all (Exp Mol Med 53, 537–547 (2021) doesn't, neither does Acta Trop 214, 105778 (2021 Feb); or Int Rev Immunol 40(1-2), 5-53 (2021).) This only highlights, since many scientists take the zoonotic origin for fact, that the lab leak is very fringe. The few sources that do mention a possible laboratory sequence of events say it's not plausible (Andersen et al., Nat Med); that while it might be hard to disprove, there is no evidence to support it ([29][30]); or that it is a conspiracy theory pure and simple ([31]).

  That puts us at a significant crossroads, because the lab leak has attracted significant attention, and has been promoted very aggressively by some: "Nonetheless, some aggressive proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis interpreted the letter as supporting their ideas. For instance, a neuroscientist belonging to a group that claims to independently investigate COVID-19 [note: I assume this is the DRASTIC group, although I can't be bothered to verify this, mostly because the tweet is likely deleted by now and because I have no interest in Twitter trolls, some of whom came to harass me personally on my talk page] tweeted that the letter is a diluted version of ideas his group posted online last year. That same week on Twitter, the neuroscientist also lashed out at Rasmussen, who has tried to explain studies suggesting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the public. He called her fat, and then posted a derogatory comment about her sexual anatomy. Rasmussen says, “This debate has moved so far from the evidence that I don’t know if we can dial it back.”" [32]. To the extent that what SCHOLARSHIP is saying, and what MEDPOP is saying, are nearly on opposite ends... ("very likely zoonotic origin, lab leak possible but extremely unlikely" vs "lab leak 'credible' and 'mainstream'")

  All in the midst of a very divisive political global situation (which should put any statement coming from political mouths into even more suspicion). Exceptional claims (that would be enough to throw these "best sources" out) require exceptional evidence. As has been said, collaboration between scientists is common, and calling it a "conflict of interest" and assuming that scientists are dishonest and not bound by standards of academic integrity strikes me as trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater, in support of a fringe position. In any case, it's not a call we as editors are allowed to make. In matters of science, we're still bound by the top sources, and if they don't find fault with the works of their colleagues, it's certainly well beyond our remit to dismiss them on those grounds. The current text isn't inaccurate, and we can seek to improve it's wording if necessary to make ideas clearer. Until and if there is a documentable and apparent shift in what the top sources say (so, as said, when we can follow these sources instead of leading them), however, we can't treat the lab leak as anything but a minority, FRINGE position which cannot be compared to the mainstream position on a one on one basis without lending it undue weight; although it can be mentioned when appropriate to the topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:38, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

• @205.175.106.86: This might be more applicable if we prohibited discussion of the hypothesis. We clearly don't. The current dispute is not whether to prohibit mentioning it, it's what level of weight is WP:DUE/WP:UNDUE.

@Stonkaments: Also, I'm genuinely curious, what is the WP policy for how to handle research if there are credible concerns of bias in the research due to conflicts of interest? This should be handled by WP:SCHOLARSHIP and favoring of secondary sources. If secondary sources don't find a COI issue with a primary study, we shouldn't second-guess their conclusions. To do so could be trying to WP:RGW, and we don't do that. That said, we summarize consensus. So long as we're clear in distinguishing (for instance) that the scientific community broadly agrees with a set of conclusions, while there's significant social/political criticisms of those conclusions, then we can address these concerns and still correctly assert that any COI concerns are a minority among scientists. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Just to add, if there are well-documented reasons to doubt an area of research then a source from it will get extra scrutiny. Hence Wikipedia generally does not use any Chinese-originated research for Traditional Chinese medicine, and Russian neuroscience sources have a poor reputation, for example. Any Chinese-originated research on COVID-19, particularly if it makes exceptional claims, can probably be discounted because of known problems of state interference. Alexbrn (talk) 13:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. How are we doing on handling the minor detail that the WHO covid report is not based on raw data? [33]