Talk:Origin of COVID-19

Origins of COVID-19: Current consensus

1. There is no consensus on whether the lab leak theory is a "conspiracy theory" or a "minority scientific viewpoint". (RfC, February 2021)
2. There is consensus against defining "disease and pandemic origins" (broadly speaking) as a form of biomedical information for the purpose of WP:MEDRS. However, information that already fits into biomedical information remains classified as such, even if it relates to disease and pandemic origins (e.g. genome sequences, symptom descriptions, phylogenetic trees). (RfC, May 2021)
3. In multiple prior non-RFC discussions about manuscripts authored by Rossana Segreto and/or Yuri Deigin, editors have found the sources to be unreliable. Specifically, editors were not convinced by the credentials of the authors, and concerns were raised with the editorial oversight of the BioEssays "Problems & Paradigms" series. (Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Jan 2021, Feb 2021, June 2021, ...)
4. The consensus of scientists is that SARS-CoV-2 is likely of zoonotic origin. (January 2021, May 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, WP:NOLABLEAK (frequently cited in discussions))
5. The March 2021 WHO report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should be referred to as the "WHO-convened report" or "WHO-convened study" on first usage in article prose, and may be abbreviated as "WHO report" or "WHO study" thereafter. (RfC, June 2021)
6. The "manufactured bioweapon" idea should be described as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. (January 2021, February 2021, May 2021, May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, June 2021, July 2021, July 2021, July 2021, August 2021)
7. The scientific consensus (and the Frutos et al. sources ([1][2]) which support it), which dismisses the lab leak, should not be described as "based in part on Shi [Zhengli]'s emailed answers." (RfC, December 2021)
8. The American FBI and Department of Energy finding that a lab leak was likely should not be mentioned in the lead of COVID-19 lab leak theory, because it is WP:UNDUE. (RFC, October 2023)
9. The article COVID-19 lab leak theory may not go through the requested moves process between 4 March 2024 and 3 March 2025. (RM, March 2024)

Which pages use this template?

Last updated (diff) on 15 March 2024 by Novem Linguae (t · c)

The wording for the WHO-China joint report

In the "Laboratory incident" section, I've reworded this sentence:

A final scenario, considered unlikely by most experts, and "extremely unlikely" by the World Health Organization...

as follows:

A final scenario, considered unlikely by most experts, and "extremely unlikely" by a joint report by WHO and China...

Yet the change was reverted.

I would suggest to use my wording, and not just "WHO".

We must indicate that the report was authored (in part) by Chinese authorities.

Firstly, because it's true. As per the report itself, it is a joint report by WHO and China, not just a WHO report.

Secondly, because there is an obvious conflict of interest here. As many sources mentioned on this page indicate, the Chinese gov is actively working on suppressing the idea that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab. Thus, we must be especially careful while using sources that are directly connected to the Chinese gov.

Calling it a "WHO report" would indicate that the report is a neutral source, which is misleading.

But (correctly) calling it a "joint report by WHO and China" would indicate a possible conflict of interest, which is the reality of the situation.

BTW, judging by the List of laboratory biosecurity incidents, such incidents happen on average every 3 (!) years (and every 6 months in the past 10 years). If some report calls such an incident "extremely unlikely", it is a strong indication that the report is biased. Compare: "A report XYZ says that a sunrise in the next 24 hours is extremely unlikely".

--Thereisnous (talk) 07:19, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. Here are several reasons why:

1. The final report did not have input from the Chinese government, which is what is heavily heavily implied by that wording. The report was commissioned by the WHA and written by WHO affiliates, with input from Chinese scientists (as well as other countries, but to be fair mostly Chinese scientists). Chinese scientists collaborated on the study that forms the bulk of the evidence cited in the report. A fair depiction of the COI means explaining all of that. Why would you want to obscure that fact? We cannot make it sound like CCP officials had oversight or editing authority on the final report, because that was not the case.

2. Did Chinese people collaborate on the study? Yes! And it's important to reference that. Because that is a fair COI criticism, that we need more international involvement and unaffiliated involvement. Totally agree with you there. But I disagree that it's fair to call this report "authored but the Chinese government." Chinese scientists collaborated on the study. This is patently evident in the fact that the report is written grammatically from the point of view of "The WHO team." In the acknowledgments, each paragraph starts "WHO wishes to thank..." You can also tell because the Chinese scientists are cited in the acknowledgments, but not the authors of the report.

3. It isn't how reliable secondary sources refer to it. When the heads of state of a bunch of different countries criticized the report, they did so in reference to "the WHO convened study in China." Here are several other secondary sources on how people discuss and refer to this report which demonstrate it is "WHO-convened" and operated in collaboration with China, which hosted the international team of visitors hand-picked by the WHO. Chinese scientists helped gather the data, helped author parts of the report, but the final say was from the WHO team.

Sources

--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:14, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Btw, not to get into a protracted discussion on lab leaks, but your wording in those statements is also misleading. It's also an example of the Gambler's fallacy. Only some of those accidents resulted in human infections, and extremely extremely few actually result in outbreaks of disease in the general population. It would be more fair to ask "How often does a lab leak result in a general public outbreak?" and even then, it's not as relevant to say "What is the probability that this occurs, regardless of place, context, or time?" the more accurate question is "What is the probability this occurred in China in late 2019 in this lab with this virus, causing this outbreak?" It's akin to the difference between "what's the probability of someone winning the lottery?" (extremely high) versus "what's the probability of you, in particular, Thereisnous, winning the lottery?" (much lower).--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Shibbolet's point, but I note that even if he were wrong, persistently referring to the report using "joint WHO-China report" is needlessly verbose and repetitive. The report, how it came to be, the actors involved, ... is already described in plenty of details. There are also plenty of sources, some of which I think have already been linked, which use simply "WHO report" or "WHO [something]". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:16, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The report's acknowledgements are written by the WHO as an individual entity. That section also says that David W. FitzSimons edited the document. A google search with his name shows that he worked with the "External relations and Governance" Division of the WHO. In the "Methods of work" section, the report says "The final report describes the methods and results as presented by the Chinese team’s researchers. The findings are based on the information exchanged among the joint team, the extensive work undertaken in China in response to requests from the international team, including re-analysis or additional analysis of collected information, review of national and local governmental reports, discussions on control and prevention measures with national and local experts and response teams, and observations made and insights gained during site visits." So, it is a complex authorship structure in which the heavy work was done by the Chinese team's researchers, followed by observations and comments from the international team (we can't tell whether these observations were minor or major), followed by a formal editing and publishing, and posting as official position, on behalf of the WHO as an individual entity. In sum, I vote to use WHO-convened study in the first ocurrence followed by the use of the abreviatted WHO report or WHO study in all subsequent uses. Forich (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

'Joint WHO-China' report is its official name, other than being the most accurate and providing context. Not mentioning is highly inaccurate and misleading. Eccekevin (talk) 04:34, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this is the official name and should be used. Which it is, currently, four times in the article. My only suggestion would be to reference it once near the top the World Health Organization section, which it used to be prior to recent rewrites giving more background to the process behind the report (a worthwhile addition, IMO, which also aims to address this topic of China's involvement). Bakkster Man (talk) 13:39, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

FWIW - I also agree that the official name, "Joint WHO-China" report, be presented - maybe a first-time "Joint WHO-China" (WHO-CH) report - and just "WHO-CH" report for all relevant instances afterwards (to help avoid being too "verbose and repetitive" as suggested earlier)? - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Wait! Did I miss something? Since when is there a WHO-Switzerland report on this? Humour aside, no need for either abbreviations or repetition. Many sources refer to the report as the WHO report, and we should strive to use language which will be familiar to our readers and which is not needlessly verbose- especially given the presence of a complex enough section on the actual science, already. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:54, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Even on the WHO website[[3]], it is referred to as the "Joint WHO-China study". I'm not sure why this would be controversial with other editors. Strong agree with referring to this report using similar language. Further, any time this report is used as a source it must be specified so that the reader is well aware.KristinaLu (talk) 02:26, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, please check out the very detailed section of evidence and argument we have about this exact thing on this very talk page over here. This is a lot more complicated than simply one cursory mention on the WHO site. They also refer to it as the "WHO-convened global study" in several places. It is not so simple.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:19, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

WHO-China report as a source

There are many sources that call this source into question. It should be avoided as a source whenever possible.KristinaLu (talk) 01:55, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Edit: Care should be taken when using this source for contentious claims and the source should be named in the passage eg. "According to the WHO-convened study..."KristinaLu (talk) 02:43, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

It's WP:MEDRS. There really isn't anything to discuss here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:05, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Here's the first sentence of WP:MEDRS:

"Biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge."

The WHO-China report doesn't accurately reflect current knowledge. That's why the letter to Science is relevant.KristinaLu (talk) 19:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Also, I should clarify my use of "whenever possible". Where the report makes non-contentious claims I see no issue whatsoever in using it as a secondary source. It should be pointed out however that the WHO-convened study is a primary source as well as a secondary one, we can see this in the "ANIMAL AND ENVIRONMENT STUDIES" portion where they have "Methods" and "Results" sections. It is not so simple as a literature review in how it needs to be handled here.KristinaLu (talk) 19:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I think you're over-complicating this. One of the three types of MEDRS acceptable sources is medical guidelines and position statements from national or international expert bodies. Official reports by the WHO easily qualify. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The letter published in Science should suffice as evidence that the WHO-China should not be used as other sources are.[[4]]KristinaLu (talk) 02:43, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Letters to the editor are not a very reliable source. I'd say it ranks pretty low on the totem pole. No peer review, and similar to a newspaper opinion piece. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

This is the point where a sensible user would think, "Oh! It seems that I, with my handful of edits spread over the last two years, am not familiar enough with how to judge if something is a reliable source or not! It seems that I routinely mistake reliable sources for unreliable ones and vice versa! I should be more modest to better fit my rookie status!"

Can't we add big, fiery letters to the top of every lab leak Talk page which say: "before you post here, be aware that you are probably on the low end of experience with medical and scientific sources and the sources you suggest are very likely crap, while the sources you want to reject, which are used in the article, have very likely already been vetted and are immaculate. If you search the archives of the Talk page, you will very likely find several discussions about the very subject you want to talk about" or something like that? WP:RANDY has been relevant to this subject for months now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:19, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling:One could have experience with both reliable sources and scientific sources through, say, both graduate school and employment in labs working with pathogens. I would refer you to WP:NPA, but I'm not particularly insulted by someone calling me a "Wikipedia rookie".KristinaLu (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling:Perhaps I can't speak as a veteran Wikipedia editor, but in an academic setting, if a substantial number of experts have derided or criticized a particular source, one should question whether or not to use said source or at the very least name the source/authors whenever it is used. The mere fact that the source in question is for example published in a prestigious journal or funded by a major organization or even that it is a secondary source doesn't make it "immaculate". I would expect this convention to pertain to science related articles here as well.KristinaLu (talk) 19:28, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

@KristinaLu: Perhaps the issue is with limited experience with the policies and guidelines the encyclopedia is based on (WP:PAG). Of particular note reading between the lines: WP:NOR and WP:COI. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, from one academician to another, I feel it is my duty to tell you that the gulf between what Wikipedia expects of its content and what academia expects is very large indeed.

There are parts of academic science which A) are better at this than wiki and parts which are B) much worse. There are very opinionated scientists and very neutral ones. There are scientists who write inflammatory subject matter reviews which would never work here. And there are ones who are much more careful than the best wiki editors at citing their sources.

But, overall, in both academic science and Wikipedia, the ultimate result is more than the sum of its parts. The peer-review process takes these inflammatory reviews and pours cold water on them. In areas of science described as "Hatfield and McCoy" feuds, continual back and forth from different camps in review articles and primary research will eventually give way to one or the other "view" of the field. As Max Planck said, science advances one funeral at a time.

Wikipedia, though, does have some assets that make it even better than academic science at its chosen goal. Scientific review articles aren't beholden to any policies like WP:DUE or WP:MEDRS, not formally anyway. That's something I really like about this place, and something it took me a really long time editing to understand. There's still a lot about it that I do not understand.

What is often told to PhD graduates at their defense? That old Socrates-ism? "What I have learned most is how much I do not know."

The same is true here. You, like me, may be an expert in your corner of science. You may be the world's foremost expert on solid state physics and its applications to Quantum computing for all I know. But here on wiki, humility is really important. Respect that you may be an expert in your field, but you are not an expert in how Wikipedia works.

My other suggestion would be to make policy-based arguments with evidence drawn from a combination of the policies themselves, the Reliable Sources in question, and examples drawn from other wiki articles. Arguments about your own knowledge of science, or, more pointedly, arguments drawn from conspiracy theorists like Deigin or Sirotkin....will not go very far around here.

I would tell you the best piece of advice I have ever learned is "figure out the precedent." Check out the extremely long and detailed archives of this talk page. You may find that the sources you've referenced, or the arguments you've made, have been made before. Read the gold standard WP:PAG like WP:NPOV (especially WP:DUE and WP:RSUW), WP:AGF, WP:MEDRS, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:V.

None of the above is to say that I have figured any of this out, but more to tell you that we are all still learning, and humility is key.

We need as many content experts as we can get, but they are not the only thing worth keeping around here. And being a content expert alone will not get you very far in terms of arguments. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:08, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Your personal view that Deigin and Sirotkin are conspiracy theorists is WP:OR and should not guide your or anyone else's edits here. I also wonder if you consider Ralph S. Baric or Robert R. Redfield to be "conspiracy theorists"?

Also, thanks for bringing up peer-review. As the joint WHO-China study is never went through the peer-review process, this should be considered as well.KristinaLu (talk) 20:38, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, if I were you, I would read WP:STOPDIGGING. I am trying to help you, not engage in battlegrounding.

Many others have described these two as conspiracy theorists, it isn't just my opinion. For example: Angela Rasmussen [5] [6]

Also helps to know that Dan Sirotkin's highest qualification for knowing anything about science or medicine is that he was a janitor in a prison hospital for 4 months. Seriously, that's it. [7] Karl Sirotkin (his dad) used to be a big name in bioinformatics.

All of which to say, no I am not alone in thinking these two are conspiracy theorists. I'm not trying to say it in wiki-voice, mind you. And I don't think these two are even notable enough to be included anywhere on wiki. But my advice to you is not meant to start an argument. It's meant to show you how your arguments can be more effective.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Rasmussen calls anyone who entertains the lab leak hypothesis a conspiracy theorist. On this issue she's a staunch advocate of a particular position and invoking her is an argument from authority. Contrast her to someone like Carl Zimmer who has maintained strict neutrality in his reporting and recognizes that no scientific consensus exists and has reported out evidence that favors zoonotic origin and evidence that favors lab leak origin. I read a lot of virologists on twitter and the views are a lot more varied than this article currently implies. (At the same time, I understand how WP works and that the article has to be based on RS, whether the RS reflect reality or not.) -- Jibal (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

So, there are three "particular positions": pro-lab-leak, anti-lab-leak, and fence sitting. You yourself are a "staunch advocate of" the particular position of fence-sitting, and by your own reasoning, invoking anyone who thinks like you would be "an argument from authority".

Back in the real world, when people quote a scientist's reasoning, you cannot turn that reasoning into "an argument from authority" by pointing out that that scientist has a point of view. The Spock model of science where everybody except fence-sitters has to stay outside is naive and far from the real world of science where you look at the soundness of the reasoning instead of labelling and dismissing people depending on their position. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:40, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

The argument from authority wasn't about Rasmussen's position on the hypotheses, it was about her labeling people as conspiracy theorists. "you look at the soundness of the reasoning instead of labelling and dismissing people depending on their position" -- exactly. As for your three particular positions, that's absurd--there is a range of levels of confidence about the zoonotic and lab leak hypotheses; all scientists are "fence sitters" to some degree or another, even if they are 99.999% positive of something. BTW, I respect and appreciate your efforts here at WP and agree with the vast majority of your positions, but I think your comment here is a misfire. I won't comment about this further. -- Jibal (talk) 17:48, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Your claim that invoking Rasmussen is an argument from authority still does not work. We quote people saying things all the time on Wikipedia, and suddenly we can't because...? There is a gaping hole in the justification.

all scientists are "fence sitters" to some degree or another, even if they are 99.999% positive of something That is exactly the Spock dogma I mean. Spock dogmatists have real difficulties to step out of it and see agnosticism as just one of several positions instead of the only right way. This is not the place for such a discussion, but you are trying to impose a specific position (a pretty broad one, but still) on all scientists and to exclude those from the scientist status who are different. As far as I know, dogmatic agnosticism is not found in any writings of philosophers of science, only in those of amateurs like Charles Fort who want to paint people who disagree with them as closed-minded. Just stop it. Science is defined by how you do it, not by what your opinion is or is not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

More misfires, and these are hostile, aggressive, misrepresentative, fallacious, and rude, and are totally wasted on me. I won't tell you to stop it because I know you won't, but these personal criticisms are out of place. Over and out. -- Jibal (talk) 20:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• An official report from a government agency based on a large international investigation is exactly the source that we need. You have not provided a policy-based reason for removing the WHO report, and in fact your sole reason appears to be that some other, non-peer-reviewed sources have disagreed with it. But these sources appear to be calling for more investigation. They do not appear to be directly contradicting the report. You have provided no evidence to indicate that the report is unreliable. You have not even demonstrated that you have sources that directly contradict it. Our rules and policies on sourcing say that the WHO Report is the highest quality, or one of the highest quality sources available. Hyperion35 (talk) 20:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. Is it possible the WHO report is unreliable and/or out of date? Possibly. But the only source put forward to back that claim so far is... an opinion letter. Such a farcical claim doesn't help build credibility. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:10, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Especially given how many other sources we have that are A) more current than both the letter and the report and B) confirm the assessment of the report.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:14, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The joint WHO-China report never went through peer-review. Environmeltal Chemistry Letters on the other is peer-reviewed:

"Content published in this journal is peer reviewed (Single Blind)."[[8]]KristinaLu (talk) 20:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Science, but all letters are also peer-reviewed in Nature:

"The following types of contribution to Nature Portfolio journals are peer-reviewed: Articles, Letters, Brief Communications, Matters Arising, Technical Reports, Analysis, Resources, Reviews, Perspectives and Insight articles."[[9]]

This appears to be the convention.KristinaLu (talk) 20:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, I think you may be confusing "Letters" and "Letters to the Editor."

These are two different things. At Nature letters to the editor are actually called a "Correspondence." See their instructions for authors: [10] However, a letter to the editor about the need for further investigation, etc. would probably be instead solicited as a "Commentary." Also not peer reviewed, but more about topical disagreements about X, Y, or Z current event. Plus Correspondence can only have up to 6 authors I believe.

As for the other sources you've indicated, they are not reliable for questions about this content. See the other arguments made against those sources elsewhere on this talk page. It does not help you sway consensus towards your view if you just leave those unanswered and choose to ignore them. See WP:1AM.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hyperion35:

1) I never meant to say that the WHO-convened report be removed as a source altogether. If I gave that impression I apologize for the miscommunication. English is not always easy for me, especially when I'm tired. What we have in the joint WHO-China study is a non-peer-reviewed source that has undergone significant criticism by notable experts. The WHO-convened report is not exactly a secondary source either, as we can see where they have there own "Methods" and "Results" sections.

2) As to the veracity of the letter to Science to provide context for reliability of the WHO-China study: Some "Letters" in Science are peer-reviewed, according to their website. Whether or not this source was peer-reviewed appears to be an open question on this talk page. We can see however that Ralph S. Baric is one of the authors, and we of course know that Science is one of the world's top journals. Here is a secondary source in Nature documenting criticism of the WHO-Convened source [[11]]

3) The Segreto et al source[[12]] in Env Chem Lett is definitely peer-reviewed.[[13]] I am adding this source to show that the Science letter is not the only evidence suggesting that the WHO-convened report has problems. We also have this[[14]] published in the PNAS saying WHO-led efforts have been "cloaked in secrecy".

4) Surely the public statements by virologists Ralph S. Baric, David Baltimore and Robert R. Redfield (as well as microbiologist and medical professor David Relman [[15]]) need to be taken into consideration as to whether every single word in the joint WHO-China study be taken as gospel in this article. At the very least, I am arguing that whenever we have a claim which is argued by such experts that we a) source said claim in text specifically to the "WHO-convened report" and b) note the controversy as per WP:DUE. @Bakkster Man:I would like your take (as well as anyone else who wants to reply) on this last point as I am not particularly well-versed in the many WP:PAG.

Following advice from Shibbolethink as per WP:1AM and pinging @CutePeach: @My very best wishes: @Thucydides411: @Terjen: @Forich: @力: @Pkeets: to see where other editors stand how the WHO-convened report should be handled as a source. The last thing I would want to do is argue for the sake of my own ego if there truly was a consensus against me.KristinaLu (talk) 23:34, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

It's a WP:CANVAS violation to ping selectively. my suggestion would be to ping everyone who has posted here or edited the article in the last 3 days or so. thanks.

EDIT: notifying every unpinged user who has contributed to this talk page and article in the last 72 hours: @Novem Linguae:, @Hyperion35:, @Hemiauchenia:, @ProcrastinatingReader:, @NightHeron:, @Adoring nanny:, @Thepigdog:, @Hob Gadling:, @HighInBC:, @Davemck:--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:17, 3 July 2021 (UTC) (Edited 12:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC) & 23:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC))

Please note I am only involved in this page in an administrative capacity. Please do not include me in the content dispute. Thank you. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 22:36, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

WP:CANVAS applies to "intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way" so it doesn't apply here. I will look to page history for another couple editors to ping, thanks for the suggestion.KristinaLu (talk) 02:29, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused what the question is. The report generally shouldn't be used as an inline citation because it's a primary source, but if other RS discuss it then it should be mentioned as those sources portray it. If this is about whether to call it the "WHO report" or the "WHO-China report" then I think it would be better to look towards the RS (ideally peer-reviewed journals, and if that's unavailable then long-style news reporting from HQRS) and call it whatever they do? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, Re: how to refer to the report, we already have that discussion. I would like to emphasize that, to the best of my knowledge, we do not cite the report in this article other than as a statement for how experts think about X thing (per MEDRS, and for uncontroversial statements which are also cited with other secondary sources.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:03, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

So what's the question in this section? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:08, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, honestly unclear. I think this is a 10 minutes hate on the report. And I guess KristinaLu wants us to talk about the criticisms of the report every time we mention it or cite it. Which, imo, would be undue.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:45, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The issue with these discussions is that they're very unfocused and keep rehashing the same settled issues, such as the Segretto paper. It becomes very difficult to extract what specific issue is being discussed. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, Agreed. I am sometimes guilty of making this worse, as are many on this page, by discussing the topic instead of the article. I guess that often happens in contentious articles. As in all things, it's a work in progress. However, I have often wondered if an FAQ would help, as is sometimes seen on other heavily trafficked pages. But I also don't want to go too deep into that, as I'm quite sure it would be a long and drawn out and horribly convoluted discussion that would repeatedly get off track. Maybe it's worth it to avoid having as many of these discussions in the future. We also should just more frequently point to talk page archives when discussions are repeated. I think that would help.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:43, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

A "Current Consensus" list, such as at Talk:Donald Trump or Talk:COVID-19, would be appropriate for the entire "Origins of COVID-19" I think. I've usually been critical about these lists, but these issues are split across so many talk pages and noticeboards and keep being rehashed that I think such a list would really help with institutional memory and dialing down the repetitiveness. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I started Template:Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus). Feel free to add & improve it if it might be a useful concept. I don't have a list on hand of every disagreement but I found a couple major issues/discussions and added. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:07, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, Definitely! Like it so far, and will add more as I am able.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:21, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I have multiple concerns about the WHO-China report. The greatest is that raw data were not given to the international team,[16] and China has made it clear that raw data related to the origin of COVID-19 are to be treated like "a game of chess".[17] That's not an appropriate attitude for science. However, the issue is unlikely to be decided on this page. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:41, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and made sure that every place we have the report cited, it's either an extremely uncontroversial statement (e.g. which scientists were on the investigative team) or we have multiple other secondary sources to back up the claim. Does that resolve this?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:45, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

No, but it's still an appropriate step to take, so thanks. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Adoring nanny, Happy to help. What other specific unresolved concerns do you have? --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:01, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Wikipedia policies are not set up to handle a situation where the official opinion of a body like the WHO is based in part on data provided by someone who is playing games. Furthermore, the report itself shows no recognition of that fact. They did note that some data were not provided, but they didn't look at the big picture of why not. A scientist should be concerned with the integrity of their data, correct??? This is a new situation. But there is a fine line to tread. I think that rewriting policies for an unusual situation could be harmful. But I do think that, in the appropriate forum, we should have a community-wide discussion about what we think of the reliability of the WHO report. For example, should it be used to support WikiVoice statements or not? My personal answer is that the WHO report is not a scientific document. Garbage in, garbage out. But we need to ask the community. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:57, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Adoring nanny, could you be more specific and less general? If you have concerns about wiki policy, my suggestion would be to take it to the talk page of that policy. But I agree that is not advisable at this time. Better to look into it and see how things age after this controversy calms down.

As far as I can tell, you don't have any specific concerns about how we currently use the report in this article, since it's only used for statements of non-controversial non-scientific fact and of summarizing expert opinion. But I may be wrong about that, please let me know. At present, I can't find any instances where it is used solely and strictly to support statements of science. Or if it is, it's because the report cites others that we also cite. In that capacity, the report is acting as a secondary source, bolstered by other peer-reviewed or otherwise robust RSes that we cite.

What specific statements do you have a problem with in the article text? I find that broad generalizations don't tend to be as productive as specific criticisms. Thank you--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the WHO report is "garbage". I've only read portions of it, but it remains a report from the World Health Organization, which is an established and reputable body. However, it is a primary source, and thus falls under WP:MEDREV even if it were peer-reviewed. It also has to be remembered that this report is pretty much the only comprehensive scientific discussion on the origins. Media sources don't go into this level of depth, and other journal sources generally don't investigate the origins comprehensively, so it wouldn't be appropriate to cut the information out. It would be appropriate to use it to source uncontroversial statements in wikivoice, and controversial statements should be attributed in-text. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:14, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I guess what bugs me is the pattern of repeating debatable statements without any counterpoint. The example of this that jumps of the page for me is the following (actually not from the WHO): WIV virologist Shi Zhengli said in 2020 that, based on an evaluation of those serum samples, all staff tested negative for COVID-19 antibodies.[126] Sure, she said that, but she is forced to participate in Xi Jinping's chess game under the threat of being arrested and/or disappeared. Therefore, the evidentiary value of this statement is zero. But the article simply repeats the statement, without noting that she is speaking under threat. Maybe the article needs to discuss the fact that while everyone else is attempting to do science, the Chinese side is playing chess? Adoring nanny (talk) 20:08, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Adoring nanny, your comment would be more appropriately placed in the sections below about Zhengli and your theorizing of her having a COI, instead of this section, which is about the WHO report.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:12, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:Thank you for the cleanup/organization that you did! @ProcrastinatingReader: said: I'm confused what the question is. The report generally shouldn't be used as an inline citation because it's a primary source, but if other RS discuss it then it should be mentioned as those sources portray it. If this is about whether to call it the "WHO report" or the "WHO-China report" then I think it would be better to look towards the RS (ideally peer-reviewed journals, and if that's unavailable then long-style news reporting from HQRS) and call it whatever they do?

@ProcrastinatingReader:I'll do my best to explain using an example. @Adoring nanny:Perhaps the following will address your concerns as well. The WHO report is used 16 times in the article. The fourth instance is the following highly contentious sentence:

Available scientific evidence and findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural zoonotic origin.

This sentence has 4 inline citations. The first two are both the WHO-convened report. The third source which directly quotes the WHO-report is a correspondence piece, likely not peer reviewed as is the convention of the journal. The fourth source is an article. The most decicive claim in that article comes directly from the WHO report: This hypothesis has been considered as “extremely unlikely” by the official WHO investigation team. I propose the following resolution:

According to the WHO-convened report, available scientific evidence and findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural zoonotic origin.

The above treatment of the source is how it would be most responsibly handled in an academic context, I can't speak for Wikipedia but I can't imagine why it would be any different in this case. The point is that if all we're dealing with here is one singular claim, it gives a false impression to the reader to have the claim with four inline citations as though all of those sources came to this conclusion independently. Adding the key language about where the claim comes from is both honest and clear. Thanks for reading. Thanks for reading.KristinaLu (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, oh the issue there is that this is actually partially a transcluded statement from a different article. That's why you see multiple citations etc. I'll try and clean it up a bit, but that's why it's like that.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:24, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I can't help but wonder why you would engage in so much clean-up, rather than simply be transparent with the readers.KristinaLu (talk) 17:28, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, ...huh? How exactly am I not being transparent? Please be more specific.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:38, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, Okay I've added some review articles and peer-reviewed research pubs to the citations for that statement, removed the commentary, and removed the WHO report from citing that statement. Every citation there firmly supports the article text.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I checked your first new source, the Wacharapluesadee et al. 1) Nothing in that article remotely resembles the sentence in question (so at the very least this is WP:SYN and 2) This is a primary source. Do I have to go over every one of your sources like this? Please don't edit in such a way (in haste or otherwise) that causes other editors to have to scan through jargon-filled primary sources behind a paywall just to find out that a claim isn't even supported. All I asked for is to attribute the claim to the source it came from. What we have now is WP:OR. Please change the sentence to say it comes from the WHO-report and call it a day.KristinaLu (talk) 18:30, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Could you please not be adversarial? We are working together to build an encyclopedia, and you are not my employer, you don't even pass the 30/500 rule. You are a relatively new editor here who is very convinced they know better than quite a few editors with more experience. I would remind you, humility is a virtue in wiki. You raised an issue with the WHO source, so I found better sources. Primary sources may be used, with caution. Especially when a review paper backs up the assertions in the primary article. It's common practice to cite both for a controversial claim. So that's what I have done, and in fact provided several review sources that are also right there supporting the claim. That sentence is supported by the Wacharapluesadee source. The Wacharapluesadee source is peer-reviewed. It's published in a very well-regarded and reliable journal. But okay, because you have raised an issue with it, though I disagree, I will remove it. I went ahead and replaced it with a review published in a pretty well-regarded journal. Not as good as the others there, but pretty good.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, The reason there aren't more citations for that statement is that we have had too many at various points and wanted to avoid over-citing. But there are many more scientific peer reviewed sources (and journalistic RSes, which I'm not a fan of using in this context) which support the statement. I'll see if I can add some scientific literature sources and clean up that citation list. But no, it would be inappropriate in my opinion to make that statement attributed to the WHO report, since there are many excellent non-WHO sources which support it.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:21, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Here's another idea as opposed to using several primary sources (that would have to be thoroughly vetted to watch for WP:OR).

Just use this sentence:

According to the WHO-convened report, available scientific evidence and findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural zoonotic origin.

Cite with secondary sources. Done. Please consider editing in such a way that makes Wikipedia transparent, accessible to non-expert editors, and free of WP:OR (including WP:SYNKristinaLu (talk) 21:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Could you please indicate which sources that are currently cited for the sentence are "primary" ? or contribute to WP:OR? I think it's probably useful also to say that every single currently cited source for the sentence is open access. No paywalls.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:40, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Additionally, I would direct you to the following explanatory supplements to WP:OR -- SYNTH is not summary, SYNTH is not important per se, and SYNTH is not explanation. I would ask that if you would like to criticize one of my edits as SNYTH, please in the future provide which two (or more) ideas I am combining to create a new thesis. I will then gladly either A) provide you quotes to show I am not doing WP:OR, or B) agree with you and self-revert or change my edits so that they are not OR. This will save us both a lot of time and headache. Thank you. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:20, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:[>This edit here.]. When you added the Wacharapluesadee et al source. Were it a stand alone source, it constitutes WP:OR as far as I can tell. And yes, you removed the article but of course only after I complained about it. Technically, if I added the King James Bible to the list of citations would that be WP:OR? Maybe not if the content was covered in other sources but it makes everything an impossible task for other editors. Other editors shouldn't have to vet primary sources in this way, especially when there is a perfectly reasonable solution that has already been suggested. No time at the moment to check the other sources. Hopefully another editor can. (Also, you're right I forgot about the paywall thing.)KristinaLu (talk) 22:50, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@KristinaLu: The reason I directed you to "SYNTH is not important per se" is because it is particularly relevant here. "What matters is that all material in Wikipedia is verifiable, not that it's actually verified. By this we mean that it is important that a suitable reliable source that supports this material has been published in the real world, not that someone has gotten around to typing up a specific bibliographic citation in the article. Citations are not an end in themselves." Now typically for controversial statements, it's important to have citations, because otherwise they will get challenged and removed. But there's no WP:PAG that says "because you added a source somebody disagreed with one time, the entire statement must be removed, you aren't allowed to keep it with good sources." At least not one I've ever heard of. The importance of the project is to have encyclopedic verifiable information. And that means saving statements that are verifiable, even if the source isn't right at the moment. In practice, that means it's okay to revert an added sentence and say in the edit summary "source doesn't support, provide good quality source" and then when somebody comes back and re-adds the sentence with a good source, that's also okay. That's just the process in action. Wikipedia is not about winning, it's about making a good encyclopedia.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

WHO-China report as a source, cont.

Creating a break here.KristinaLu (talk) 22:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

My crude attempt at a synopsis of what was discussed above:

The reliability of the WHO-convened report (this is the name that was agreed to, right?) has been called into question by experts as well as by the international community. We have talked about how to treat all contentious claims (made in this article) which are currently sourced to the report by treating them in one of the three following ways:

1)Introduce wording such as "According to the WHO-convened report..."

2)Replace with other RSs if all of the other peer-reviewed and other RSs agree and I would argue generally that they do not, otherwise the claim would not be contentious

3)Delete said material.

Looking forward to what the community has to say.KristinaLu (talk) 23:01, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

KristinaLu, Your option 2 does not make sense with WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE.

It doesn't matter if one or two sources from unqualified non-experts say A, when the majority of available HQRSes (peer-reviewed review articles in topic-relevant and well-regarded journals) say B.

We don't elevate viewpoint A to a worthwhile inclusion in the article if most available secondary sources don't even mention it. We treat A with due weight, which to a WP:FRINGE or extremely minority viewpoint, is to say we do not mention it. And we certainly do not just delete B because A exists. For instance, Deigin and Segretto's viewpoint can be understood as fringe when we examine the fact that no HQRSes even mention the existence of their paper.

So instead we include the statement B as supported by HQRSes, with due weight to the mention of B in available HQRSes. We do not include minority viewpoints just because they exist, only if they are mentioned by others as notable and worth giving minority weight.

For scientific claims, the relevant guideline on what counts as a HQRS is WP:SCHOLARSHIP. This would tell us that we defer to scientific review articles in topic-relevant and widely-circulated journals. They determine the weight we give viewpoints.

You also left out Option 4) Adjust the statement until it is compatible with what secondary RSes say, ignoring the WHO report altogether.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:42, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I addressed a similar issue as the one raise by KristinaLu in this [[18]] discussion, abruptly closed without consensus. I believe it has aged well because other editors and readers have pending concerns on the reliability of the report. I propose we revisit the discussion at RSN if evidence keeps mounting up against the report' credibility. Forich (talk) 23:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, why does the credibility of the report matter if we don't use it to make statements of controversial unattributed fact? And if we also discuss the many pitfalls and concerns that have been expressed with the report in the appropriate sections with the appropriate weight? (which I believe we already do)--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: [I see.] Your post did indeed age well. What a curious move it was to close that conversation. I should be clear here; to me what is at issue are the contentious claims made in the WHO-China report. On the other hand, what is conspicuously missing at key points in this article is the fact that the WHO study came up short on all of the investigations they did do (ie. found nothing at the market, found no reservoir species, found no link to frozen foods, etc.). The report could be useful (along with secondary sources of course) to illustrate that point. Well, I would gladly be willing to help compile a list some of the developments that have happened since then.

Here are four names that come to mind: Ralph S. Baric David Baltimore Robert R. Redfield David Relman

KristinaLu (talk) 01:03, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:, If the WHO did not wanted journalists and wikipedians to discuss the extent of credibility of its origin report they should not have endorsed the flawed version that came out. I have no responsibility in that, I'm just calling it out. Authority is not perennial, that's why we regularly bring hot topics to Reliable Sources Noticeboard. It took Wikipedia five years to realize that CGTN was not very reliable on some topics (it was launched in 2016 and only by 2021 user Hemiauchenia raised concerns about it, see this thread. In the case of Xinhua News, editors soon advocated for some filter (e.g. User Peregrine Fisher said Xinhua is a reliable source. Just be careful if your using them for something that the PRC would want slanted.. I hope that a proper discussion would eventually lead us to some filter of the sort of: do not trust a WHO-report that repeats political statements about Taiwan's sovereignity, or do not trust a WHO-report that repeats COVID-19 death figures that have been shown to be statistically unrealistical, or do not trust a WHO-report that repeats Chinese claims that frozen foods is more likely than a lab leak origin. These are just arbitrary examples to show that some narrow areas of distrust can be drawn. And maybe I am wrong on all of them, I just don't want the discussion to be closed within 24 hours with an explanation of "its political nonsense". Forich (talk) 03:48, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, What specific changes would you like to achieve consensus on? This feels like more arguing in a ten minutes hate about the report. We cover many criticisms against it, from several different people. We also cite it only for where expert opinion is being referenced, as it is a professional body of experts. It's not our job to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, or somehow depict the "true" nature of reality. it's our job to depict the world through the lens of verifiability and using the best available sources. So please explain, how are we not doing that in the current article text?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 03:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I've made specific diffs that have been reverted:

1. strongly questioned adjective
2. Reuters and CNN deserve to be cited
3. not seen as credibly adjective
4. A new point is this specific point on the hierarchy wikivoice -> MEDRS -> RS: I propose we prevent to put in wikivoice anything that is seen to be influenced by the documented Chinese control of information that could have transpired into the report (if it can not be substantiated by a second source). Examples: a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely (p. 120), / Transmission within the wider community in December could account for cases not associated with the Huanan market which, together with the presence of early cases not associated with that market, could suggest that the Huanan market was not the original source of the outbreak (p. 7), / introduction through cold/ food chain products is considered a possible pathway (p. 9.

This four points are specific, have made them before (at least the first 3, including justification on talk page). These edits got watered-down to the current paragraph that has upfront that Tedros "called for more studies" with a timid "Doubts over the report were also echoed by some media commentators". I propose to change the balance, by putting less weight on Tedros call for more studies and more weight on the lack of credibility cited in RS. Forich (talk) 05:35, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, point by point:

1. My gut reaction is "not NPOV" and particularly WP:UNDUE since we already have your 30 scientists, the WSJ investigation, and multiple multiple politicians and scientists criticizing it in the article. I don't think this one particular sentence adds much of anything. In the current article, we actually describe the criticisms and who has said them, instead of making broadly uncitable pronouncements. I also don't think your citations actually support the statement you've attached them to, particularly the White House citation and the Reuters citation do not say that. The New York Times article supports what we already have in the article text: criticisms about transparency and access to samples/raw data. The Atlantic article does not even refer to the WHO-convened report on COVID's origins, instead referring to the Joint Mission that examined transmission dynamics and how to control the spread of disease [19]. Totally different report, I've made that mistake myself. I believe you've accidentally synthesized "China withheld data" and "WHO said the virus was likely zoonotic" to produce the WP:SYNTH "credibility has been questioned due to a "proclivity to side with China." I don't see that thesis anywhere in those citations, except from Matt Ridley as an opinion. And I can't find other citations talking about this Ridley piece, so I think including it even as an opinion of his would be undue. The Telegraph is well known for its very very opinionated bend towards conservatism. Ridley also has no relevant expertise other than having written some books about genetics (which I greatly enjoyed). He has no formal training in virology or epidemiology or international relations, though, and for that reason we should not cite it as even an expert opinion.

2. not NPOV, there are already a ton of references in NPOV language, why add the one quote that is a paraphrase of a paraphrase? We've already cited 30 scientists and a ton of other individual experts. Quickly becomes a race to win king of the COATRACK.

3. Of these 4, this is the one I am most sympathetic to. It's a good source, with a good non-picked quote. However, that being said, we already have specific people questioning credibility, and also joint statements, individuals, countries, scientists, and the WSJ questioning the credibility, plus others I have definitely forgotten. This very quickly becomes a WP:COATRACK where the end result is "let's put as much negative criticism as we can find here" instead of "let's duly weight the criticism in proportion to its actual coverage in the secondary sources." We need to be very careful about that tendency, I have felt it myself. I could be convinced on this one, but overall I am pretty confident it's UNDUE.

4. This is again an opinion-based argument, that has no bearing on MEDRS or statements from an expert body. If the American Heart Association all got together and made a statement, "Jumping off bridges is actually good for your heart health," then we would duly report that very statement as an attributed expert opinion. It's important to include because it's an expert body making a claim, and a claim that is covered extensively by secondary sources, showing that our depiction of it is also WP:DUE. We may not like that claim, we may find it troublesome, but that isn't what matters. It doesn't matter how much Reuters says "The AHA has been taken over by aliens!" It doesn't matter how much Matt Ridley doesn't like it.

Bungee jumping is in season, or rather, "The AHA has decided that bungee jumping is in season."--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 06:35, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:, user Darouet has been Wikipedia: Bold and did a major rewrite of the reactions to the WHO report. It seems to me he ignored most of the talk page discussion. We can follow the discussion starting from his new version, or revert it and invite him to join the previous productive discusssion. I can work either way, I'll let you take the call on what to do. Forich (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

why the Bloom lab preprint doesn't make the lab leak more likely

(and also another reason why we probably shouldn't include it in articlespace yet).

Just wanted to drop this excellent Twitter thread from Trevor Bedford[20]. And also this Jesse Bloom twitter thread helps as well[21].

What this shows is that the added sequences that Bloom had his preprint focused on only further solidify the phylogenetic argument that the B lineage of the virus (which is most of what we've seen in early Wuhan) was probably not the founder strain. Molecular clock vs rooting in closest known viruses disagree, but it's clear that the most parsimonious arrangement has the A strain as the founder. If true, this makes Wuhan a less and less obvious origin point for the virus. The Bloom preprint sequences only emphasize that further.

and this debate, this confusion about what the preprint means, is precisely why peer review is so valuable and why preprint findings should not be included in these COVID-19 articles, regardless of how much coverage they get in news sources.

We need the robust criticism and context from other scientists to make these findings clear and robust. and useful.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:09, 26 June 2021 (UTC) (edited 15:37, 26 June 2021 (UTC))

So lemme get this right. We've got well-sourced assertions, given without attribution in the sources that appear to be factually correct and are undisputed (even by those who take a different interpretation on what the event means), published in Nature, the New York Times, CNN, and other HQRS, and we want to exclude any mention of this from Wikipedia on the basis of a Twitter thread by Trevor Bedford? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

That's not really what I said. I'm sorry let me try and make it more clear.

My argument about non-inclusion is that these news coverage sources don't know how to properly contextualize or interpret the findings of the preprint, as per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. News agencies do not, by and large, have the expertise to understand the science behind this controversy. And, more specifically, the Nature article you're referring to is a news article. It is not peer reviewed or (usually) written by a scientist who has training in this field. Ewen Callaway has a master's in microbiology, to be fair[22].

In general, I find the argument for inclusion using the Nature news[23] and Science news[24] pieces to be more compelling.

But I still think for something this controversial, this debated, we are way more likely to get it wrong than right by relying on news sources. Here are several news agencies with great reputations who completely fumble the coverage of this preprint, by emphasizing how "secretive" and "cloak and dagger" this is [25][26][27][28]. Bloom himself (in the twitter thread above) emphasizes that the secrecy should not be assumed to be malfeasance [29], that the issue is the totalitarian regime of the Chinese government, and also how these sequences make the phylogenetic argument for a zoonotic origin slightly more solid.

The academic press news sources (which, at least in the case of the Nature piece, do cover this well) push me a bit closer in the direction of inclusion, but not all the way. I'm sorry that you disagree. I'm not trying to be tendentious, just asserting that there is a reason why Preprints are problematic. They need the context of peer review, much like what Bedford is doing openly in this twitter thread. The final published version of Bloom's article would do well to have a more clear and frank discussion of the multiple rooting possibilities. And better phylogenetic trees that show this rooting problem. He discusses it some, but in a confusing way. It's confusing for me, and I have a PhD in this field. So why do I expect news reporters to have a better grasp of it?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:37, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, there was a consensus at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information saying that special sourcing requirements do not apply to the origins. Although currently unclosed, by numbers alone it's obvious it won't be closed any other way. If our WP:RS guideline is resulting in factually accurate information, that should be addressed separately.

About this, it appears nobody disputes the core facts. Here it says Some scientists are skeptical that there is anything sinister behind the removal of the sequences. ... “You can’t really say why they were removed,” Dr. Bloom acknowledged in an interview. “You can say that the practical consequence of removing them was that people didn’t notice they existed.” Even those disagreeing on the interpretations agree on the core fact that sequences were removed due to a request by the Wuhan University.

There exists no policy that allows editors to unilaterally decide publications by community accepted reliable sources are factually inaccurate. We are not citing to a preprint, we're citing to reliable sources discussing things in a preprint. These are two very different things. Reliable sources are allowed to do original research - in fact, that's precisely the point. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

There were actually a fair number of comments on that RfC that also emphasized that the RfC was meaningless or unnecessary, because we already have policies which say that scholarly journal articles have primacy over news articles, even in spaces where MEDRS does not apply.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:53, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, iirc that was my argument, but no peer reviewed scholarly sources exist for this particular issue, so we go to tier 2 RS (good illustration: User:Levivich/Tiers of reliability). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:56, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we're arguing past each other. I get what you're saying, I get the tiers of reliability. The other important point would be the way the General/Discretionary Sanctions handle preprints in this topic area. There are quite a few other preprints which never got published, or which are preposterous, or even get published in crappy journals, which got lots and lots of news coverage. However we don't cover them here. This case with the coverage about this preprint is different, but this serves to show the edge case. One example would be this absurd paper in a Biophysics journal published by those two Norwegian guys that is full of misinformation [30][31][32][33][34][35]. Sørensen et al got lots and lots of basic facts about the virus wrong, and a few WP:RSes covered it. In some cases, they actually repeated false claims of the paper, without proper fact checking. Does that mean we also should have a section on this paper/preprint? If we had done so right when it happened, we would have repeated those false claims. And not had the proper context to know this preprint was bogus and full of misinformation.

I guess what I'd like to say is, if we're going to include it, the weight and proportion and context should be entirely based upon the news articles published in Nature, not these other outlets. And frankly, if it were solely my decision (which it isn't, I'm a fan of consensus), I wouldn't include it at all until it were peer reviewed. Because it's a controversial set of claims and ideas, in a controversial topic area, under DS.

If we're going to include it, the context of the Nature news article is probably the best around, and should form the basis for inclusion. Emphasizing the way this changes the phylogenetic argument, and how it means we need a more open investigation with less interference from the Chinese government. NOT emphasizing the "secret deletion" or the way this somehow means a conspiracy is afoot. Does that make sense? I think our due weight should be based on the best quality sources, namely those two articles in Levivich's Tier 2.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:10, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

In that example you gave, the only tier 2 RS is The Telegraph, and that's a "Letter to the editor", not a news article, so the piece itself is not RS, and The Telegraph made no such claims in its own voice. So it's not really comparable to this situation. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

More generally, there could be a case where the RS get it wrong, but then Wikipedia (as a tertiary source that merely summarises the reliable secondary sources) will and should get it wrong too. Wikipedia can only do as well as the RS do. Editors setting their own standards is a hazy line (if it were acceptable, then surely "the sources are POV" would be a valid claim to exclude content in the American politics topic area). I have no strong opinion on how exactly this material is covered, but complete exclusion or a presentation that is not reflective of the best sources is contrary to Wikipedia policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:23, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

We are not citing to a preprint, we're citing to reliable sources discussing things in a preprint: Pre-prints are unreliable for factual claims. Popular press articles about pre-prints are even worse. We should not be relying on low-quality sources for any remotely scientific claim, and in the context of virology, the NYT, CNN and the rest of the popular press is low-quality.

By the way, it should be noted that the sequences in question were published by the Chinese researchers who obtained them in a peer-reviewed journal in June 2020: [36]. The specific claim being made by Bloom is that they were removed from a specific database, but the researchers did subsequently publish the sequences elsewhere. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:39, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The articles I saw, most of them explicitly mentioned that Bloom himself said this doesn't affect the origin debate (specifically where the zoonosis occurred). It's the insistence to add information about the preprint to this article which seem to be wanting to make the link, contrary to the author's statements.

I think we can (and should) improve our discussion of the pre-Huanan Market spread without needing to rely on the preprint. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:32, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

• It does not matter if it makes "lab leak" more or less likely. Were new sequences of the virus found, was it an important finding, and was it reported in secondary RS, such as CNN (certainly not Twitter)? The answer to all these questions is definitely "yes". So include this sourced info on the page please. My very best wishes (talk) 01:30, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Why lab leak likely/unlikely is completely besides the point

As those of you who have read the preprint already know, Bloom never claimed his findings gave more weight to any lab origins hypotheses. Rather, Bloom presents the removal of the data from NCBI and CNGB as prima facie evidence of the Government of China’s gag order in effect, as clearly stated in the preprint’s abstract. This gag order was first reported by the The Associated Press in their bombshell investigative report [37]. This behavior is not the norm in Public Health Emergencies as per International Health Regulations, and this is why I highlighted the importance of phylogenetic evidence in the RFC about COVID-19 origins [38]. Serological or phylogenetic analysis of the index patients and virus are probably the only means for scientists to investigate the origins of this virus, without the Government of China’s cooperation on a forensic investigation of wet markets and labs in Wuhan.

Those here trying to downplay the deletion of these sequences and advocating for the WP:POVDELETION of this story either don’t understand the role of phylogenetics in epidemiology, or the importance of Data publishing for Reproducibility in Open research and Open science - so you should click these links if they’re blue for you, and read this letter too [39]. For sure it was nice of the authors of that paper to leave us a table of mutations in and publish it to a nanotechnology journal where no virologist would ever have found it, but that table wouldn't have been enough for Bloom to do a phylogenetic analysis and publish the findings of what he believes are ancestral sequences of the virus as it was spreading in its early days. With that said, we should include the critical comments from Robert F. Garry in the WashPo for WP:BALANCE, as he is one of the most respected virologists in the world, even if still red linked. It should be noted that Gary’s response is to Bloom presenting his finding as evidence of cover up, and not to his phylogenetic analysis, which he hasn’t commented on, yet.

Note that the Government of China is holding up talks for [40] and resisting certain terms of [41] the International Treaty for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which will be the biggest revision of International Health Regulations since the last revision created after their well documented cover up of the early spread of 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. This is still all coming together in WP:RS, so we should take it slowly. CutePeach (talk) 13:51, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: Those here trying to downplay the deletion of these sequences and advocating for the WP:POVDELETION of this story either don’t understand the role of phylogenetics in epidemiology, or the importance of Data publishing for Reproducibility in Open research and Open science... To be clear, the opposition appears to have been almost entirely a difference in interpretation of WP:PAGs, not the content itself. We'd be having a much different discussion right now if this was already peer reviewed. Let's not jump on the POV-train. As you said later: This is still all coming together in WP:RS, so we should take it slowly.

With that said, we should include the critical comments from Robert F. Garry in the WashPo for WP:BALANCE, as he is one of the most respected virologists in the world, even if still red linked. It should be noted that Gary’s response is to Bloom presenting his finding as evidence of cover up, and not to his phylogenetic analysis, which he hasn’t commented on, yet. I broadly agree that this is the key in how we present this. We have a RS that sequences were deleted at the request of the submitter (on the basis of submission elsewhere, do we have a RS that identifies them as not being available?), the initial claim in the preprint isn't itself an RS and the coverup claim should be handled with care (as I explained above), with RS for other scientist's reactions. Could you link the WaPo article with the Garry comments? I included a critique from David Robertson in Business Insider in my proposed rewrite above (see discussion) and could see the potential to drop that one in instead if that's what we're going with. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:14, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man thanks for your reasoned response as always. Here is the WashPo article with critique from Gary [42]. Please note that Gary is one of the holdouts of the Proximal Origin paper, and I suspect it's personal for him because he has worked closely with Shi of WIV for many years, and he has also been falsely implicated in lab leaks before, which may be noted in other RS. CutePeach (talk) 14:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, your claim "there was a consensus at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information saying that special sourcing requirements do not apply to the origins" is entirely false. There was a poll asking "to unambiguously define disease and pandemic origins as a form of biomedical information" (i.e. under the scope of MEDRS). That poll failed. But it doesn't mean that it is entirely not biomedical information. As many, including myself (who opposed) said, there are aspects of the origin of covid that are biomedical information (and thus under the scope of MEDRS) and there are aspects that are not (and covered by other guidelines and policy). Just because it isn't entirely biomedical information doesn't mean it is entire not biomedical information.

I note that Bakkster Man has added some text on the deletion dispute per discussion further above. In my view, that dispute warrants coverage as a (for now) notable scientific dispute about the origins of covid 19, and not for the actual biomedical claims made by Bloom (which fail MEDRS and fail the sanctions against preprints regarding covid). Whether that dispute rumbles on or gets forgotten in a week or two will determine if the text is notable enough to remain. -- Colin°^Talk 18:33, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: I'll point out again, nobody has yet made the case that this claim requires MEDRS sourcing. The first references of MEDRS regarding this topic were from people arguing against a strawman that the revert was based on WP:MEDRS rather than WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Let's not allow preemptive arguments against MEDRS to become an albatross that prevents productive consensus building.

In the end, I pulled the pre-print note from Li-Meng Yan's article (to point out that it lacks review), and followed up the deletion claim (clearly non-biomedical) with the confirmatory note from a news RS. If there's room to improve it's with the claim of the phylogenics, which I watered down significantly (and I suspect we have prior strong sources we can point to to make the claim that this was already well established science, but need help finding) and the contrary opinion from another scientist. The thing that ended up swaying me mostly was that while I cite the pre-print, it's not really used to make any claims but has to be at least referred to because it prompted the discussion. Definitely a better inclusion that the originally requested bare presentation of 'he found missing sequences and we don't know why they were missing', and calls to restore prior to at least adding that context. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:04, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

You may be right that nobody removed it is claiming it requires MEDRS sourcing, but those arguing for its inclusion have mentioned MEDRS and their views on its apparent non-applicability to this entire article. -- Colin°^Talk 19:34, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

The first mentions of MEDRS were people advocating for inclusion, and the only mentions by those advocating against inclusion were in agreement that MEDRS didn't apply. Just because someone mentioned MEDRS in another discussion about other content doesn't mean we should keep referring back to it preemptively, especially not when used to say something along the lines of 'this isn't a BMI claim, and there are no other applicable sourcing policies'. That's why I call it a strawman, and why preemptively mentioning it hurts our consensus building. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes... So, the origin of COVID-19 isn't covered by MEDRS, which is what I said. If some particular sentence in this article falls under a different applicable category then obviously it's covered as usual, but it's not covered by virtue of being related to the origins of COVID. The idea that sequences were deleted is not covered under a different applicable category. The text you have introduced is pretty much what I was arguing should've been added (or, at least, there was no sourcing reason not to add it), so I don't really have any remaining concerns here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:58, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Saying "the origin of COVID-19 isn't covered by MEDRS" won't make that true no matter how many times you repeat it. Some aspects of the origin of COVID-19 are covered by MEDRS and some aspects aren't. Look, if some academic had discovered a recent ancestor of COVID-19 in some Chinese bat cave, and nobody had ever suggested a lab leak, this entire thing would be a short paragraph or even just a sentence in some other article, and be sourced entirely in compliance with MEDRS. -- Colin°^Talk 11:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

As it stands, there's far too much space given to the Bloom/SRA story. The problem is that it takes several sentences to adequately explain what happened (reads published in the SRA, reads deleted from SRA, sequences published in a journal, Bloom writes preprint, various people comment on preprint). But in the context of the overall investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, this is a minor story, and it shouldn't take up this much article space. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

This was my primary concern as well, though I think it's mostly mitigated by being near the bottom of the article and contextualized (your edits were very beneficial). I'd actually like to see that section expanded with some other (more notable) independent findings. That might also point out if this preprint is a nothingburger that it's worth removing (and will reduce our reliance on the single WHO study). Bakkster Man (talk) 18:09, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

The WHO study is, by far, the most thorough investigation into the origins of the virus. It should take up most of the space in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting otherwise, it should have top billing right now. But I do think there's room to flesh out information on other, less notable studies lower on the page. Bakkster Man (talk) 02:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Thucydides411, your edit [43] puts the claim that the Wuhan University researchers published the sequences, which is not what the Nature article or any of our other sources say. The Nature article makes it clear the sequences were deleted from the SRA before the paper was published, and the sequence information it was published with did not contain the raw data. I have explained above that a table with a list of mutations is not the same as raw sequence data, and the entire section seems to brush that aside as a "nothingburger". CutePeach (talk) 03:29, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

In this case, the single nucleotide polymorphisms contain all the relevant information. The criticism is that the raw reads were deleted from the SRA, but the paper still made the most important information available (though I don't think even Bloom is claiming that these particular sequences say much of anything new about the origins of SARS-CoV-2). -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Still, Nature Magazine does not make that distinction. Your edit is based on a WP:MISREPRESENTATION WP:MISINTERPRETATION of our source.. What you call relevant information and raw reads are not the same thing and we should not be presenting them as such for our readers. CutePeach (talk) 11:38, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with your assertion that my edit misrepresents this issue. As the Nature article explains,

Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, points out that the sequences Bloom recovered were not hidden: they are described in detail, with enough sequence information to know their evolutionary relationship to other early SARS-CoV-2 sequences, in the Small paper.

The issue Bloom is criticizing is the deletion of raw reads from a particular database, but as the Nature article points out, the same authors who deleted the raw reads also published the sequence information. But again, Bloom's pre-print is still a pre-print, and I'm highly doubtful that we should say anything about it in the article at all. Just in the time that we've been discussing the pre-print here on the talk page, it has undergone very significant revision. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:56, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I think, with this information part of the section, it's worth wondering whether this is a nothingburger that shouldn't be covered, or if it is that it's covered more directly as 'much ado about nothing'. Something more along the lines of "A preprint claimed to find missing genomes which had been deleted from the SRA, however this genetic information had simply been published in an alternate location." We've mentioned it, but not given it more credence than it's worth. @Colin: ping since you had input on this previously. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I just gave that Independent Investigations paragraph a quick read. I think the whole paragraph/section should go. Giving this much weight to a WP:SELFPUBLISHed preprint seems a bit WP:PROFRINGE to me. If it takes 5 sentences to explain something claimed in a preprint, that is just way too much weight to something that is self-published, imo. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the main argument was that if someone comes looking for discussion of the Bloom preprint, they should find information about it here. Hence my suggestion to reduce it to a sentence or two of it basically being debunked, rather than the tempest in a teapot of "someone moved genetic info, another person noticed, and some other people freaked out". Bakkster Man (talk) 18:57, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, agreed. We are basically extremely WP:UNDUE by drawing out the entire saga instead of just saying how much of a nothingburger it is.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:27, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: again, the Nature Magazine article does not say that the sequences were republished. Goldstein’s comments can be quoted using WP:INTEXT attribution, but using them in place of statements made by the authors of the article or to twist the meaning of their statements is WP:MISINTERPRETATION. Bloom’s latest updates to his preprint clarify questions, including those from Goldstein, but they do not change his allegation that the SRA deletion was to obscure the existence of the data.

@Bakkster Man: your claim that this genetic information had simply been published in an alternate location is false, as the sequences were not republished, which I have repeatedly pointed out above. Bloom’s preprint certainly > hasn't been debunked as you also claim, and by "it" I mean its main finding, which was that the deletion of the sequence data constitutes prima facie evidence of the Government of China’s gag order on Chinese scientists in effect. Even Goldstein conceded that in his Disqus comments on the preprint, calling on Bloom to focus his claim on the Chinese government and not Chinese individual scientists.

Shibbolethink please can you explain why a story reported by Science Magazine, Nature Magazine, USA TODAY, The Daily Telegraph, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, Business Insider and El País is a nothingburger? More importantly, now that you are here, please can you respond to the point I made in the header of this subsection titled lab leak likely/unlikely is completely besides the point. We are discussing the removal of sequence data intended to obscure their existence, as reported by our reliable sources. Dr Bloom was careful to qualify his findings as informative but not transformative and that the attention his preprint got was because of how people are hungry for any data [44] - something which there is a severe lack of here. Some editors here seem to be misremembering the paucity of data here, possibly in a bid to downplay Bloom’s findings. CutePeach (talk) 07:27, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach, Please see your talk page. It isn't enough to be covered by all those RSes, what matters is "do they cover it in reference to the virus' origins?" and more specifically, "do the WP:BESTSOURCES cover it in relation to the virus' origins?" I'm not convinced they do, given that everyone here is quick to mention how little it does to change the estimate. Purely as my expert opinion: "that table wouldn't have been enough for Bloom to do a phylogenetic analysis" is not true. SNPs, if they are comprehensive (synonymous & non-synonymous, genome-wide) are exactly what you need to do a phylogeny.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 07:42, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I ask you again to please respond to the point I made at the start of this subsection. As to your WP:AGF warning on my talk page, it is clearly evident that there are editors here WP:MISINTERPRETING our sources in order to downplay the significance of Bloom’s findings and delete all mention of them from our article. If you want to achieve WP:BALANCE, you can cite expert WP:OPINIONs as quoted in our WP:RSs, instead of citing only your own expert opinion. The Science Magazine article quotes W. Ian Lipkin as saying There may have been active suppression of epidemiological and sequence data needed to track its origin. On the relevance of Bloom’s findings to the subject of the article, Lipkin is quoted as saying This is a creative and rigorous approach to investigating the provenance of SARS-CoV-2. I really don’t know why you are trying to argue over every aspect of COVID-19 origins that might point to a laboratory incident. CutePeach (talk) 09:13, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

We can look again at what the Nature Magazine article says:

Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, points out that the sequences Bloom recovered were not hidden: they are described in detail, with enough sequence information to know their evolutionary relationship to other early SARS-CoV-2 sequences, in the Small paper. (emphasis added)

The use of "points out" indicates that Nature Magazine agrees with the statement, and even putting that aside, the above statement is simply true. Table 1 of the paper contains the SNPs, which is what you need to know the sequences. But again, we're talking about a pre-print here, not a published paper, and that pre-print is undergoing significant changes in real time. It's already been significantly modified just while we've been discussing it, and it's unclear if and in what form it will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. We should not have an entire section on a pre-print. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:39, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach the deletion of the sequence data constitutes prima facie evidence of the Government of China’s gag order on Chinese scientists in effect. Even Goldstein conceded that in his Disqus comments on the preprint, calling on Bloom to focus his claim on the Chinese government and not Chinese individual scientists. Sounds like WP:OR to me. Based on the most reliable of sources, Disqus comments! You're making quite the case for removing the sentences outright. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:04, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

It is or ought to be it rrelevant ot his discussions whether or not COVID19 originated in a lab, and, if so, how it became released. It'ss an interesting question, and , like many questions about the specific origin of diseases, of interest both to epidemiologists in the narrow sense, and scientists generally, and the general public. For the general public is interested in this sort of information even when the disease is not a current threat, and is very certainly interested in this particular information, because of the general and still uncontrolled threat to mankind. This requires determining in detail the science and also the factors that might tend to obscure the science, and a wide range of specialist will be involved. Personally, as a biologist with my doctoral training in the only non-medical school Department of Virology in the US, I'm inclined to (over) value the molecular biological evidence, but that's just me. as a biologist, not me as a Wikipedian. We report not the truth, but the verifiable information, and in this case, the verifiable information about the various hypotheses that people consider. Whatever the origin prove to be, and based on the molecular evidence so far, I doubt it was the Wuhan laboratory, we still need to discuss the various hypotheses; and, considering the world-wide interest in this issue, and its political and science-policy implications, people would seem likely to continue this interest and discussion indefinitely. Certainly, the mere possibility that it is laboratory origins and the especially the remote possibility that the strain was deliberate produced in a gain-of-function experiment whether true or false, will have very grave implications for the ability to do further research of this sort in China or anywhere else, and proving this was not the case will not and should not diminish the social concern about such research.

It requires neither political nor scientific sophistication to see this. That we do not cover it fully because it it possibly not the more correct hypothesis is a disgrace, and an example of OR in WP running amuck.Perhaps OR is not the right term, but the unaccountable prejudice that anything ever espoused by a far right wing source is inherently ludicrous and not worth further discussion. The principle of free inquiry is that everything ,however unlikely, and who ever supports it, is open to discussion. And if the discussion is substantial , whether in scientific or lay sources, it must be covered by Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 10:27, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

DGG the particular problem in this discussion is that Thucydides411 is claiming - falsely - that the sequences were republished, and Shibbolethink, is claiming that the table of mutations which were republished (not the sequences) are enough for a phylogenetic analysis. As I have explained in my indented post immediately above yours, the first claim is patently false, and the second claim is tedious, but both are WP:OR. These kind incredibly tedious discussions are what made Normchou ignore talk page discussions altogether, which Shibbolethink got him banned for. Tagging Johnuniq and HighInBC. CutePeach (talk) 11:07, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, a full description of the sequences was published, as you can verify by either opening up the paper or by reading the Nature news article about it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Description of the sequences is not the same thing as raw sequence data! Deleting such data from NCBI is not normal! Francesco espo (talk) 12:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The sequences and the raw reads are not the same. The former were fully described in the journal article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:32, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

As I said, that's none of our business. Deciding whether a scientific hypothesis is sufficiently supported by th evidence is not the role of WP. We repport the proposal, and we report what others say about it. my main point remains, that, if, as I expect, the proof is sufficient and the sequence is known, and it does not seem compatible with lab transmission, the lab transmission hypotheses should be covered just the same, as disproving it would have been part of the scientific information. We can report he claims, however thr truth may eventually be. If there's a question of balance or doubt, I support including material (with the only 3 exceptions BLP, unsourced, and advertising, neither of which is relevant here). If we do include, people can judge. If not ,we give them no information. It, like all experimental or observational scientific information should be presented in the terms of "apparently confirmed hypothesis" , not "proof". Proof in science is transient. DGG ( talk ) 11:26, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man:I respectfully disagree with the "tempest in a teapot" characterization. As CutePeach put it, the role of phylogenetics is key to the origin question. I'm including the first paragraph of the ""Discussion" section of the preprint because it is really quite accessible to readers who wish to understand the impact of this story:

I have identified and recovered a deleted set of partial SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the early Wuhan epidemic. Analysis of these sequences leads to several conclusions. First, they provide further evidence Huanan Seafood Market sequences that were the focus of the joint WHO-China report are not representative of all SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan early in the epidemic. The deleted data as well as existing sequences from Wuhan-infected patients hospitalized in Guangdong show early Wuhan sequences often carried the T29095C mutation and were less likely to carry T8782C / C28144T than sequences in the joint WHO-China report. Second, given current data, there are two plausible identities for the progenitor of all known SARS-CoV-2. One is proCoV2 described by Kumar et al. (2021), and the other is a sequence that carries three mutations relative to Wuhan-Hu-1. Crucially, both putative progenitors are three mutations closer to SARS-CoV-2’s bat coronavirus relatives than sequences from the Huanan Seafood Market. Note also that the progenitor of all known SARS-CoV-2 sequences could still be downstream of the sequence that infected patient zero—and it is possible that the future discovery of additional early SARS-CoV-2 sequences could lead to further revisions of inferences about the earliest viruses in the outbreak.

I also want to emphasize that "lab leak" is really besides the point here. The fact that early Guangdong viruses are closer to SARS-like bat CoVs agrees with the author of this widely cited phylogenic analysis published in PNAS who has stated publicly that scientists should look for patient zero in South China. In other words, just in case anyone here is under the impression that inclusion of this story is somehow "POV pushing" they're missing the point entirely. No matter where the virus came from, sequences like these are among the most important evidence to answering the question.KristinaLu (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@KristinaLu: And once the pre-print is reviewed and published, then his allegations might be credible. Until then, I'm incredulous (and I'd suggest WP policy requires us to be incredulous until then). And, per quotes in RS, seems he may have jumped the gun. Hence the 'tempest in a teapot'. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:00, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: please respond to the point made by CutePeach in the header of this subsection entitled Why lab leak likely/unlikely is completely besides the point.KristinaLu (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

hi KristinaLu I'm starting a long wikibreak as I enter the phase of medical school that starts to consume all of one's waking time in order to figure out what kind of doctor one wants to be. Wiki will unfortunately get in the way of that. Please help me maintain my wikibreak by not tagging me again. I'm sure one of the many other helpful users around here can answer any questions as well as I can. I also would like to note, it may help them answer if it were posed in the form of a question or a specific change that you or CutePeach would like to propose. From a cursory glance, I don't see either in the lead of this section. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:59, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

What to do with the Bloom paragraph

Regarding the section titled "Independent Investigations", should we keep as is, condense it, or remove it? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think we should remove the entire section/paragraph. It doesn't seem particularly related to investigating the origins of COVID-19. It is a self-published preprint. And it requires 5 sentences of explanation. Giving this much WP:WEIGHT to a minor story seems kind of WP:PROFRINGE to me. We're amplifying this "controversy" way more than it deserves. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• Remove or reduce heavily. We even say explicitly that it has no real bearing on the origins investigation (especially since the sequences were almost immediately reposted under the publication). Why are we bending over backwards to include something we even say has no bearing on the main subject of this article? --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:11, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
• Remove: not reasonably an investigation into COVID origins. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:09, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. According to a recent news article in The Washington Post on 7 July 2021, reviewing patient zero (S01), the Bloom study is sufficiently mentioned, in context re the virus origin, to gain a note at least in the main article I would think - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

References

• Invalid Motion. Please see WP:NOTVOTE and WP:NOVOTE. Looking at the comments in this discussion and the #Early Chinese Virus sequencing deleted discussion, I do not see a consensus to remove this section and I’m thoroughly unimpressed with those trying to downplay the significance of Bloom’s finding and dismiss their relevance to the subject of this article. CutePeach (talk) 09:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  There's a lot of text above this section (more than I'm willing to grok). And people may also have changed their minds during the discussion. This format makes consensus easier to evaluate. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:36, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  Not invalid, read the policies above. This is a worthwhile method to gauge consensus in addition to a large conversation. Bakkster Man (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: I don't see anyone changing their mind other than Bakkster Man, who was never of the mind to include it in the first place, and isn’t voting here to remove it. Including Drbogdan who first added the report, I count more editors in support of including Bloom’s findings than those opposed. But even then, I've heard it said that we should base our editorial decisions on WP:PAGs, and not WP:POLLS. If we have new sources which say the actual sequences were indeed published in a new venue like some here are claiming, then that might change the consensus here. Until then, we should just quote Robertson and/or Goldstein for WP:BALANCE. CutePeach (talk) 03:14, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Reduce significantly as proposed above, or remove. This level of weight definitely seems WP:UNDUE now. Not just for the lack of relation to the origins (per author), but because it's a pre-print. Fine to mention it so readers find content, but shouldn't be WP:PROFRINGE. Bakkster Man (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Wait. How is this not related to origins if Bloom’s main findings is that the origins are being covered up by Chinese government? I am in the beach now but I can explain you deleting sequences from NCBI this is not normal! Francesco espo (talk) 14:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Because Bloom said this didn't relate to the origins, and it isn't a 'cover-up' when the data just changes publishing venue. That you've jumped straight to it's a coverup means either you haven't read our article or the sources, or the article is insufficient to describe it (and the WP:PROFRINGE problem is worse than I thought). Bakkster Man (talk) 16:09, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• I'd like to see how Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:China COVID-19 cover-up gets closed. If it's kept, remove it from here. If not kept, keep it, because I'm of the opinion that one can't stop an article being created and simultaneously remove the same RS-sourced content from all existing articles per WP:UNDUE. It's reliably sourced and should be somewhere on the English Wikipedia, even though I agree it's not integral to the investigation. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Firstly, I can only emphasise that Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. As soon as you ask a question and offer a limited set of options to pick from, you narrow the discussion to just those options. And as soon as one answers one's own question with a statement that contains a bold option choice the whole thing becomes a vote.

Secondly, you guys are quoting WP:WEIGHT and WP:DUE and WP:UNDUE at each other without reading them. (OK, I know you guys have read them, but really, look again). The policy says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". It does not say that weight is determined by the wise judgement of editors opinions about a research publication. This is entirely a matter for whether reliable sources publish (and continue to publish) about this topic. We give it similar prominence within the wider topic as they do. So I'd expect to see editors cite articles at each other rather than WP:UPPERCASE.

Wrt the paper being a pre-print, I think that is a red-herring in this discussion. Neither a pre-print nor a primary research paper published in the most prestigious journals such as The Lancet or Nature can establish their own weight. WP:PSTS says "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources" and WP:PRIMARY says "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved....e.g. a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. So even once Bloom's paper is published, we can't use it as a source, and it is itself irrelevant wrt weight arguments.

I also caution against citing WP:PROFRINGE. Firstly, it just gets people cross when you start saying the word "fringe" wrt a scientist who isn't a crank. But mainly because that's an argument about whether we should say "Sequences of the Covid-19 genome were surreptitiously deleted from a database as part of a cover-up by the Chinese government". And we don't say that.

I don't think the biomedical science or data forensic aspects of Bloom's paper warrant publication in Wikipedia. What I did think was notable, the other week, was the stramash among scientists discussing those claims. That found notability in a number of highly regarded magazines and newspapers. And in order to discuss that dispute we of course needed to, as briefly as possible, describe what the fuss was about using those secondary sources. Readers of those other publications may turn to Wikipedia to see what it says about it, and I think an information vacuum was not serving our educational mission. Add to that the high degree of conflict among editors interpreting this delay in reporting current affairs as "censorship" rather than editorial restraint about what may end up being, as some put it, a nothingburger. IMO, I'd rather Wikipedia had a few lines of nothingburger for a few weeks, than editors get so frustrated with each other that they start attacking precious guidelines.

For that reason, I think we should keep a paragraph on this Bloom-deletion fuss on Wikipedia for now, and revisit it in a few weeks. If, for example, at the end of July, all the reliable sources have a June 2021 date on them, then it clearly hasn't retained sufficient enduring notability. And it will have served its purpose in providing information to readers who were reading about it elsewhere. -- Colin°^Talk 14:09, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I also caution against citing WP:PROFRINGE. Firstly, it just gets people cross when you start saying the word "fringe" wrt a scientist who isn't a crank. With all due respect, I find it strange that you admonished other editors for failing to read policy, then turned around and used the word "fringe" differently than the policy uses it. For the record, my reference refers entirely to the advocacy above that it needs to remain because as one editor interpreted it, the preprint concludes the origins are being covered up by Chinese government. That's the pro-fringe I'm worried about, especially since it suggests the wording in the article gives this impression rather than a truly NPOV wording. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:01, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, both you and Novem Linguae cite WP:PROFRINGE in your argument to reduce/remove the text. However our article text does not actually mention the contentious aspect of the story at all (that the sequences were deleted "surreptitiously" and that this is part of a "cover up by the Chinese government"). The claim that some parts of the sequences were removed from a database is not, as far as I can see from the secondary sources, contested by anyone. Everyone seems to accept that Bloom's forensic analysis was decent science, though we do need to be cautious about that since it hasn't been published. If you are aware that this claim that sequences were removed actually "departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views", per WP:PROFRINGE, then some sources would clarify that for me.

One could argue that Bloom's most inflammatory claims (that the sequences were deleted "surreptitiously" and that this is part of a "cover up by the Chinese government") are not scientific claims at all, but political speculation of a very human and social kind. I even wonder if those claims will make it to the published edition at all.

The WP:PROFRINGE section says "if the only statements about a fringe theory come from the inventors or promoters of that theory, then "What Wikipedia is not" rules come into play." but Blooms paper and its various claims are covered by independent reliable sources, not just Bloom's preprint and promoters of the Lab Leak theory.

But as well as being irrelevant to our actual article text, while I do appreciate you are using the term per policy, Wikipedia Fringe theory tells us The term fringe theory is commonly used in a narrower sense as a pejorative, roughly synonymous with pseudo-scholarship.", which is why I say that it makes people cross. Both writer and reader of a WP:UPPERCASE shortcut can make the mistake of thinking it means something it doesn't. A careful writer will both try not to say something incorrect but also to try not to say something that is perceived to be incorrect. In an area where tensions are high, it doesn't help to say what some will read as WP:TOTALNUTCASE.

Lastly, I found this article interesting. Part of it says "Last month, 18 scientists writing in the journal Science called for an investigation into Covid-19’s origins that would give balanced consideration to the possibility of a lab accident. Even the director-general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the lab theory hadn’t been studied extensively enough. But it’s U.S. President Joe Biden’s consideration of the idea—previously dismissed by many as a Trumpist conspiracy theory—that has given it newfound legitimacy." And that article is not alone in noting this shift in how it is regarded. Regardless of what you and I think about the origins, and no matter how correctly you think you are citing guidelines, there will be folk who skim down this page and see a bunch of pro-science editors shouting "FRINGE" and wonder if our NPOV policy is being respected. -- Colin°^Talk 14:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: The claim that some parts of the sequences were removed from a database is not, as far as I can see from the secondary sources, contested by anyone. I agree, but perhaps I can better explain my concern to clarify.

Let's consider some other hypothetical bit of information which was removed from a database and republished elsewhere. Would that change alone be notable enough to spend five sentences of the article explaining? Or, would the notability be dependent on the circumstances surrounding the deletion and republishing? I'd argue the answer is "no, unless the circumstances surrounding it are what's actually due".

My concern is that the only reason people are considering the move notable is the allegation of a 'Chinese government coverup'. If there's no coverup, the deletion and republishing isn't notable (IMO). By considering it notable, we're implying the coverup allegation. Especially on this article about the origin. As such, we should either remove the text (not notable), shrink it (to merely the deletion and republishing, no mention of the preprint), and/or more directly address the allegation (as supported by RS, I'd suggest the mainstream view is that it's a nothingburger). If you don't like the phrasing of WP:PROFRINGE, then let's stick with WP:UNDUE which PROFRINGE directs us to: Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects... Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements and use of imagery. In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained... To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute.

The lack of coverage to other minor investigatory topics on the article suggests it would be more in keeping with the rest of the article's DUE weight threshold not to include the topic. And if we do, it seems it should basically be to debunk the WP:SELFPUB's claims. Maybe I'm missing a major argument that the deletion and republication would be WP:DUE without relating it to a cover-up, but it seems most of the arguments in favor are related to that cover-up. Hence my suggestion that the section would at least need to be reworded so as not to give that impression (which would indeed be UNDUE and PROFRINGE inclusion of SELFPUB). Bakkster Man (talk) 15:07, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

You are still trying to work out WEIGHT by your own judgement. I don't agree that us considering the dispute notable (for now) we are implying there is truth in the cover up. The dispute among scientists is notable simply because reliable sources are covering it when discussing "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19". For example, Trump's comments about injecting ourselves with bleach were and remain an enduring aspect of the history of Covid-19 politics (though, fortunately, not medicine). I would imagine that would form part of any comprehensive article on that topic. I don't think any respected journalist reporting on it felt they were giving credence to the idea.

I wonder if it would help to try to look at the coverage as though they were reporting on something you really don't give a s**t about. Like something about the British royal family or a sport you don't even know the rules for. To make this talk page a lot less about what we as editors think about the deletion or the cover up or whether this might fade away or that Bloom is on a path to be Time Person of the Year 2021.

I also think we are overthinking this whole thing wrt DUE thresholds and being strict about policies. With a wiki we should be able to take a more agile approach to this, and I'm trying to suggest we be a bit more flexible wrt Covid lest we find our precious guidelines are wrecked by a mob. Regardless of all the WP:RULES, there will be readers coming to Wikipedia expecting us to cover this story, at least in July 2021 there will, and our text educates them briefly about the dispute, as well as providing reliable sources for them to read about it some more. That's our mission. Job done. At the same time, the huge pressure to mention "OMG scientist found smoking gun proving Chinese scientists deleted data as part of government cover-up" can be solved without being accused of censorship. We can say that, yes, we do cover that story, but here's what reliable sources think about it. -- Colin°^Talk 16:14, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with agility. That's why I added the text originally. But agility should go both ways, adding and removing. "Well, it's in there now, we should keep it" is not agile.

The dispute among scientists is notable simply because reliable sources are covering it when discussing "Investigations into the origin of COVID-19". I continue to disagree strongly with this. See WP:VNOT. For instance we don't cover Li-Meng Yan on this page, despite considerable media attention. While I'm actually in favor of adding other, similarly notable (but minor) topics to this section of the article (which will help with DUE, by sharing the spotlight a bit more), I think you go to far by suggesting that mere news coverage makes a topic notable and due. Especially since WP:DUE applies as much to the quantity of text we give a topic (hence my preference for reduction, not elimination).

I also still hold that trying to appease the "OMG scientist found smoking gun proving Chinese scientists deleted data as part of government cover-up" crowd is a terrible strategy, as they won't ever be appeased. If you think policies and guidelines mean inclusion makes for the best article, that's fine. But bending policy to make the conspiracy theorists happy is the literal definition of WP:PROFRINGE... Bakkster Man (talk) 16:38, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying "Well, it's in there now, we should keep it". But I do think it is a little premature to be ditching it. WP:VNOT is very much agreeing that a single reliable source isn't enough to guarantee inclusion. If this was some exclusive story in the middle pages of the WSJ then we wouldn't be discussing it. But WP:VNOT doesn't tell editors how to figure out whether and where to include something. It links to several other policies, including WP:UNDUE which talks about how prominent this is among reliable sources. I'm not saying this is easy and Wikipedia is generally very cautious about including events that are briefly in the news. Nor am trying to appease "conspiracy theorists", but I also don't think labelling people "conspiracy theorists" is helpful. What we included isn't acceding to unreasonable demands any more than is giving a child demanding an ice cream an apple instead. And I'm not trying to bend policy either: at the top of our policy pages is a link to WP:COMMONSENSE, which I certainly think is worth a read.

Wrt prominence in reliable publication, the story has certainly peaked, but the NYT still includes Bloom's claims in its "Here’s what you need to know:" box. And Science Mag reworked their story on 2nd July. -- Colin°^Talk 17:31, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man I am not opposed to reducing and clarifying the text. I am opposed to the blatant WP:MISINTERPRETATION of our sources and the claims that Bloom’s findings aren’t significant or relevant to investigation into the virus. May I remind you that there are a number of very reputed scientists who are of the WP:OPINION that there isn’t enough data to determine whether the virus has natural origin or laboratory origin. If the virus does indeed turn out to be of laboratory origin, then Bloom’s findings will have been proven to be very significant and relevant at this time. CutePeach (talk) 14:05, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll be much more inclined to agree on the significance and relevance once the paper has been peer reviewed and approved for publication. Until then, there arguably aren't any "findings" we can reliably source to Bloom (since it's WP:SELFPUB). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach, you really need to keep your talk page discussions focused on actual article text and cite actual reliable sources, rather than just commenting generally and offering your opinion of the state of affairs. All the text in the paragraph is reliably sourced, as far as I can see. If there is text that is wrong or should be reworded, propose an alternative and give reliable sources. That's how it works. If you do continue to soapbox on these pages, then I think I shall be asking for admin intervention. It isn't productive to turn these pages into a forum where two sides debate Covid 19's origins for themselves. -- Colin°^Talk 14:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man:, I hear you, but this case is similar to the Pangolin paper which did not provide any supporting data, which we have discussed before without resolution [45]. This is a matter of Data publishing, and many journals today require supporting data, yet the authors of these papers haven’t responded to anyone on why they deleted their sequence data. If Bloom’s paper passes peer review, it will mount pressure on the SMALL journal to retract Wuhan University researcher’s paper, which will give us another sentence to add. We will also have more to write about the phylogenetic analysis, but not more than a sentence, as it's not transformative. This incident shows how hungry the scientific community is for data, which the Chinese Government continues withholding, which is why I and other editors have countered other editors here claiming Bloom’s findings aren’t significant or relevant to the subject of this page. CutePeach (talk) 15:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: If Bloom’s paper passes peer review Bring up the topic if that happens, stop wasting everyone's time with WP:CRYSTAL. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:07, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

As Colin pointed out, even if it does pass peer review, it would still be a primary source. The significance of Bloom’s findings and their relevance to the subject of the article, as I said directly above, does not gain more weight with peer review. CutePeach (talk) 15:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

If that's how you feel, I agree. We shouldn't give Bloom any weight in the article, because his preprint is unreliable. Sounds like consensus to me, I'll make the change. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:23, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Just because it doesn’t add more weight, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of weight already now. CutePeach (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: perhaps you’ve missed parts of the discussion here about the WP:V of the phrase Thucydides411 added to the Independent Investigations part of the article, and the little "failed verification" tag that ProcrastinatingReader added to it? I would edit it out myself, but I don't want to get maligned and banned in ANI or ARE. This is a seriously egregious case of WP:OR which goes to show what the larger problem is here. CutePeach (talk) 15:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Feel free to double check my attempt to better reflect the source.[46] Bakkster Man (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with your edit. Case closed. CutePeach (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: Please remove the failed verification tag if you feel it's appropriate. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:42, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, I don't think this edit represents our sources at all. Basically, you've personally decided which parts of the story are relevant and snipped out the bits you'd rather we didn't mention. You don't want to mention Bloom and his claims because you are focused on thinking our source for that is a PDF on some pre-print database ("because his preprint is unreliable") and because you disagree with Bloom's suspicions and regard them as a fringe view. The text remaining ends up being some confusing pointless statement about deleted data and a comment about the "conclusion" of a paper that is no longer even mentioned. But Bloom's paper is not our source. Our reliable secondary sources have titles "Seattle scientist digs up deleted coronavirus genetic data, adding fuel to the covid origin debate" and "Deleted coronavirus genome sequences trigger scientific intrigue". Our reliable secondary sources mention Bloom and his claim and they cover the story because of the heated scientific debate it provoked. You and CutePeach are still playing the game of decided for yourselves what has weight, when Wikipedia policy is to give that problem to our secondary sources. Try to regard Bloom's paper as inadmissible evidence in court -- you have to pretend you didn't read it and care nothing about its contents or its reliability or publication status. Focus on what our reliable secondary sources are saying, and cover the story in proportion they give to the details. -- Colin°^Talk 16:08, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: If you disagree, revert it. But you appear to be the only one opposed to that part of the change, and consensus doesn't require unanimity. Try to regard Bloom's paper as inadmissible evidence in court -- you have to pretend you didn't read it and care nothing about its contents or its reliability or publication status. Focus on what our reliable secondary sources are saying, and cover the story in proportion they give to the details. IMO, that's exactly what I did. Removed any mention of the preprint, covering only the removal of raw reads from NIH database, republishing in different form, and response from a scientist. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, wrt disregarding the paper, I mean as a "source" from which we make judgements and extract quotes. I don't mean you can disregard Bloom or his claims when our reliable sources do mention it. You can pretend you didn't read the paper but you can't pretend you didn't read the secondary sources. They mention Bloom and his claims in their headlines, and Bloom and his claims are the meat of the story. So removing that is just very very weird. You haven't based your text on what reliable sources say, but instead on simply what bits of the story you yourself want to mention or don't want to mention. Our readers frankly won't have a clue what that section is about because it describes things that are secondary and mentions random other people. For example, you give weight to virologist David Robertson but zero weight to Bloom. How is that in proportion per WP:WEIGHT? Our sources don't do that. The source, businessinsider.com, says "Prof David Robertson, an expert on viruses at the University of Glasgow, said in a statement..." As far as I know Robertson's views haven't made headlines around the world, so what's your justification, per policy, for quoting him and not Bloom? Robertson's statement seems to come from Science Media Centre.

Let's consider the example I mentioned elsewhere: Trump in April 2020 said that because disinfectant "knocks [Covid-19] out in a minute", "is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning". This is a White House press briefing, not a pre-print or a peer-reviewed research paper or any other formal kind of publication, but ramblings by a president who fails WP:V's requirement for a reputation for fact checking an accuracy. So by the standards you are applying to Bloom's claims, Wikipedia should not mention this at all. The idea of treating Covid-19 by injecting bleach certainly comes under the scope of MEDRS (whether one thinks that is biomedical claim or health advice or anything else). So apparently must say nothing and wait for "A systematic review of household cleaning products and their efficacy as intravenous Covid-19 therapeutic agents". Or, per your recent edit, we write something like "In April 2020, a White House press briefing caused Deborah Birx to shuffle her feet in awkward frustration and shocked commentators around the world", which is factual but pointless.

Instead, editors applied common sense, and realised this was a big political news story, not a medical claim. We have a huge section at Trump administration communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Significant coverage at COVID-19 misinformation by the United States. A mention at White House COVID-19 outbreak and Miracle Mineral Supplement. A paragraph at Trumptini. A sentence at Kayleigh McEnany. A table row at Timeline of the Donald Trump presidency (2020 Q2). A section at Bleach. A paragraph at Virucide. I could go on because Google had many more pages of results. -- Colin°^Talk 14:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: Which is it? Do you want us to regard Bloom's paper as inadmissible evidence in court, or merely not cite the preprint directly? Because hearsay about inadmissible evidence seems worse to me.

They mention Bloom and his claims in their headlines, and Bloom and his claims are the meat of the story. So removing that is just very very weird. Sounds like good reasons to support removing the topic entirely from the article. Unless you intend to propose an improved paragraph wording in search of better consensus?

As far as I know Robertson's views haven't made headlines around the world, so what's your justification, per policy, for quoting him and not Bloom? Because Bloom's claims were made in WP:PREPRINTS, which are not reliable, we should treat them as such. Simply repeating an unreliable claim in an unreliable source because it was reported on could be considered WP:Fact laundering, and we mustn't give WP:UNDUE weight to such a claim. As part of discussing the WP:FRINGELEVEL of an unreliable minority claim, we must place the claim in context with the mainstream. The Robertson quote is one way of doing so (I'd suggest the simplest, but not the only person we could quote nor the only way to provide that context). Robertson's quote is acceptable because his opinion was not made as a WP:RSSELF or under the guise of WP:SCHOLARSHIP which we hold to higher standards (which is the answer to the Trump bleach comment, DJT didn't publish a pre-print of the claim so we followed different sourcing rules), and we attributed the quote rather than wikivoicing it. This is all assuming we haven't blown the whole thing out of WP:PROPORTION, and decide to remove the topic entirely. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:15, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man you are still trying to weigh Bloom and Robertson yourself, not per the proportion given to views in reliable sources. And you are still confusing a political story with a biomedical one. As biomedical claims or scientific claims that we might put in Wikipedia's own voice, neither Bloom nor Robertson's original publications meet the grade (the pre-print server or the sciencemediacentre's random list of scientists they found at short notice who wanted to express an opinion) and they are not our sources either per WP:V nor per WP:WEIGHT. And some of our reliable sources interviewed Bloom. The only way you guys are ever going to stop banging heads against each other and wrecking MEDRS is if you accept this is a political story. I don't understand at all that you seem to think that because Trump's bleach comment sprang from his own brain during a press conference that somehow it is more reliable than if he'd spent the morning reading a pre-print server for the latest daft ideas. The solution to many disagreements on Wikipedia is to make it "somebody else's problem". We cover this political story per what reliable sources on political stories say, in similar proportion to how the reliable sources do it. -- Colin°^Talk 13:50, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: Your edit removes the fact that the Small paper includes the sequences. Despite what CutePeach has repeatedly claimed, the paper contains the sequences, in the form of the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). CutePeach is confusing raw reads with sequences, but the SNPs are in the paper, and they fully specify the sequence. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:49, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Thanks for the fix. I was trying to describe that the vital info was there, just not in raw form, but you explained it much more clearly. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: The sequences were deleted from NCBI database, from which Science Magazine most virologists expect to be able to download whole viral genomes. But this is not even the main point of the story.

@Bakkster Man: I have to agree with Colin here. I was very tired last night, so I didn’t read all the edits, and I think your text doesn’t fully represent the sources. Here is a full chronology of events as detailed in our reliable sources:

1. Curtains open slowly, swooping up from the center as they draw, revealing the stage, with a spotlight: In a world starved for data to clarify the origin of COVID-19, a study claiming to have unearthed early sequences of SARS-CoV-2 that were deliberately hidden was bound to ignite a sizzling debate. [47]

2. On 6 March 2020 researchers from Wuhan University’s Renmin Hospital posted a preprint on medRxiv describing early COVID-19 patients and the specific mutations in their viruses.

3. Some time before 31 March 2020 the researchers posted sequences the NCBI's Sequence Read Archive (SRA).

4. On 24 June 2020, the paper was published in Small, a journal more focused on materials and chemistry than virology. According to the Journal’s records, the paper was submitted to them on 03 April 2020.

5. Fast forward to an unknown date, Bloom Bloom wanted to do his own analyses of the viruses detected in the earliest cases [48] which led him to a study [49] that listed all SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted before 31 March 2020 to the SRA [50], but "when he checked the SRA for one of the listed projects, he couldn’t find its sequences.

6. Bloom goes about Googling some of the project's information whereupon he found a study from a scientist we need not name, from the Wuhan University's Renmin Hospital, that low and behold had been posted as a preprint on 6 March 2020 on medRxiv and published in June of that year in Small, a journal little known to virologists. Needless to say, this is the same paper as in 2..

7. Bloom then sets about internet sleuthing leading him to discover that the SRA backs up its information in Google's Cloud platform, which turned up files containing some of the [WU team]'s earlier data submissions. As the Science Magazine explains, the Small paper mentions no corrections to the viral sequences that might explain why they were removed from the SRA. For Bloom, this reinforced suspicions that the Chinese government has tried to hide how the pandemic started, and Ian Lipkin is quoted as saying This is a creative and rigorous approach to investigating the provenance of SARS-CoV-2.

8. But now critics are given the stage and they call his detective work much ado about nothing because the Chinese scientists later published the viral information in a different form, and the recovered sequences may add little to the origin hunt. Andrew Rambaut is quoted as saying The idea that the group was trying to hide something is farcical. Another critic is Stephen Goldstein and Bloom acknowledges them, and toned down this sentence and other accusatory language but says most virologists expect to be able to download whole viral genomes from a database like the SRA.

9. Science Magazine concludes with a quote from genomicist Sudhir Kumar saying Many people feel that there is a lot more Chinese data out there, and they don't have access to it. Nature Magazine concludes with a quote from Bloom saying There are probably more data out there [51].

10. Bloom bows. Curtains close. Audience applauds.

Can we fit all of this into five or six sentences? One part I missed out is Bloom’s phylogenetic analysis, which Rambaut disagreed with, but that would require another sentence. CutePeach (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach, I really appreciate that the green text all comes from the sources (at least, the ones I checked did). I think Bakkster Man did a fair job in his initial edit of condensing the story and writing in encyclopaedic form rather than journalistic prose. But I suspect his patience is growing thin at working on a story he thinks is a "nothingburger" so probably unfair to expect him to redo it all. There isn't really an appetite for making the text longer than it was originally. You could propose some text here if you want to have a go. -- Colin°^Talk 15:21, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I think Bakkster Man did a fair job in his initial edit of condensing the story and writing in encyclopaedic form rather than journalistic prose. But I suspect his patience is growing thin at working on a story he thinks is a "nothingburger" so probably unfair to expect him to redo it all. Accurate assessment.

Two sets of inputs. First one would be to suggest that whatever we end up with should be no longer than it was before, and probably shorter (this appears to be the consensus across the breadth of the discussion, and I don't think that's a stretch in the slightest). I'd also argue that any discussion of Bloom's phylogenic analysis should wait until the preprint is reviewed and published, as the media sources primarily focus on (and only give us reliable validation of claims regarding) the data deletion from the SRA. Finally, I'd suggest that we copy edit any suggestion here on the Talk page prior to going on the article to avoid past issues with POV.

Alternate consensus suggestion: does it make more sense to have a "Data Availability" section instead? This seems to be the primary concern: who has what data in what format with how much access? We echo this regarding the WHO report and most of the notable open letters have referenced this is an issue. Both calling for China to be more forthcoming, and warning against accusations leveled at China making such data less likely to be shared. The text we write about the SRA kerfuffle might not change much, but it would definitely put it into better (and broader) context. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think reliable sources are covering this as a "data availability" story. Or do you have examples? But I agree that revised text should be proposed here. -- Colin°^Talk 13:50, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it's clearly being covered primarily as a data availability story. I did a Google News search for 'bloom preprint' and most of the headlines mentioned the data being "deleted"/"removed"/"hid"/"obscured", and few mentioned the phylogenic analysis (which, per above, I don't think we can reliably use until peer review, unlike the independently verified NIH SRA removal). Even if we need to agree to a different synonym of "availability" (I thought that was the most neutral term, but I'm sure there's other options I didn't consider). I'd be interested in hearing an alternate synonym, if you have one to propose. Examples from the quotations immediately above:

• "In a world starved for data to clarify the origin of COVID-19, a study claiming to have unearthed early sequences of SARS-CoV-2 that were deliberately hidden was bound to ignite a sizzling debate"
• "virologists expect to be able to download whole viral genomes from a database like the SRA"
• "Many people feel that there is a lot more Chinese data out there, and they don't have access to it."

The other big advantage of this reframing, is it would better link us to the thread running through the WHO study's reactions about "more timely and comprehensive data sharing", and even the prevalence of pre-prints and open access to improve the speed with which the origins were able to be investigated. As can be seen above, that seems to be the reason this preprint got the attention: everyone was primed to discuss whether or not we have the data from Chinese researchers to independently evaluate. We also seem to have more examples of data availability topics worth writing about than "independent investigations". Bakkster Man (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree, I'm just cautious that sources aren't saying "data availability", and it is fairly nerdy language. Whether making data available or information sharing or some other phrasing, we should consider negatives and positives. There's the quite remarkably early and open sharing of the genome by Chinese scientists, which has benefited us all in giving the vaccine researchers such a head start. If this is a new angle to consider "investigations", then one wonders what else fits into that pot? -- Colin°^Talk 15:13, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man and Colin, the main story here is definitely lack of data, but Bloom’s phylogenetic analysis is quite central to it too. In their critique, Lipkin, Goldestein, Wertheim are quoted as concurring with Bloom’s analysis, confirming what was speculated WRT to the virus circulating before the market outbreak. This is uncontroversial, but where we need to exercise more care is in describing the disagreement between Bloom and Garry WRT to what Bedford calls the "rooting issue", and passing review won't change that. I don’t see any need to omit details for the sake of shortening the section and I don’t see any consensus here to do that. I think reports of Bloom’s findings should stay in the Independent Investigations section, as there will be more publications from independent scientists, such as the new paper from Nikolai Petrovsky in Scientific Reports [52] [53] [54] [55], which I will add tomorrow. CutePeach (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

• Remove.

  The partial genome sequences address an evolutionary conundrum about the early genetic diversity of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, although scientists emphasize that they do not shed light on its origins.
  — Callaway, Ewen (2021-06-24). "Deleted coronavirus genome sequences trigger scientific intrigue". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-01731-3.

  TrangaBellam (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Edit proposals

I will put an edit proposal here tomorrow morning. CutePeach (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: It has been a week, and you seem to have moved on to other non-neutral editing. Should I remove the paragraph, now? Bakkster Man (talk) 22:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: please restore the text you deleted. There is no consensus here to delete this section and doing so is a WP:POVDELETION. I started writing the edit proposal but due to the way our last round of edit proposals went [56], I have been somewhat despondent. Now with the way our discussions are going in COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, where you are claiming that the premise of the hypothesis isn’t WP:DUE there, it seems to me you are abusing WP:BRD process, which is why I - for the first time - became bold myself, which immediately resulted in you filing a case on WP:ARE. I am tagging here Mr Ernie, Atsme and Dervorguilla, so that they understand how this began. CutePeach (talk) 16:41, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Given the ongoing ARE, I'd prefer if a 3rd party (Colin, or any of the users you've tagged) requested that I restore the content, which I would abide by. Otherwise, I prefer to wait for the ARE to resolve, and/or your proposed rewrite. Bakkster Man (talk) 01:22, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

CutePeach, can you please not continue to WP:CANVAS like this? --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, I'm not following this page closely, but got pinged. I see the section was "removed pending rewrite, see talk page" on 20th July, and it is now the 24th. I may be missing something, but I don't see a pending rewrite. Perhaps it, or something, could be restored, "pending rewrite". I mean, unless the text is egregiously incorrect or misleading, then the wiki way is generally to edit in situ, or at least propose alternatives (particularly when editors are repeatedly failing to make consensual edits) to the existing text. Btw, Prejudice doesn't have any use in science is an article in China Daily dated 22 July (it is critical of Bloom). I mention this purely to point out there is still ongoing discussion of this controversy. I still think Wikipedia should briefly mention the scientific controversy. CutePeach, where Bakkster Man is right is that Bloom's science is not ripe for inclusion on Wikipedia: it is just a preprint. At this point it is just a controversy-story that has sufficient mainstream media coverage to warrant inclusion IMO, but it is not a scientific-development story (yet, and may never be). -- Colin°^Talk 09:08, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@Colin: Appreciate your weighing in. I restored the paragraph per your comment: I still think Wikipedia should briefly mention the scientific controversy. My concern was mostly that I postponed working to either improve the text or build further consensus, pending the offer above to propose a rewrite the following day. I gave it an extra week (I understand that WP is low on most of our priority lists), and was frustrated to find that rather than the proposed rewrite here CutePeach had instead been proposing multiple other paragraphs on other articles, without chiming in here to mention whether they still intended to rewrite this paragraph or not. While I'm sure it was a mere oversight by CutePeach, it's naturally a frustrating one. Nobody else seemed to mind the removal, with no other comments here disputing it or proposing a different solution. Hence why I wanted to ping you, as I've appreciated your 3rd opinion over the course of the dispute. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:55, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

My problem with the current text as a stand in is that it does not mention or imply any investigation into the origins of COVID-19. We say:

1. Virus data was removed from an archive
2. The removal was standard and had a reason
3. Someone published a study on the data but not the raw data
4. The whole thing was mundane

As is, a reader would reasonably wonder why the section is included in this page at all. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 14:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

This is similar to my comment above at 16:08, 7 July 2021. Perhaps we should rewind to an earlier version, that does at least mention Bloom. -- Colin°^Talk 09:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we're all in agreement that the current text just doesn't make a meaningful link. A rollback isn't my first preference, but I'm not necessarily opposed. At some point after AR/E, I'm considering seeking wider input on how we handle this kind of sourcing: scientific claim with unreliable sourcing (preprint) that has significant reliable news media sourcing. This isn't the first time we've run into this issue, and won't be the last. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:00, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man, I think what we need is more attributed quotations about how this event was interpreted by notable parties, namely scientists like Relman, Ebright, et al. who found this concerning but also the scientists who didn't think it was an issue on that TWIV episode I mentioned on your talk page. In proportion to how common those views are. Basically we need to make it an attributed quote section.

I recognize in some cases this may mean including some UNDUE material, but at this point it seems appropriate to allow a complete picture and connection back to the subject of this article to outweigh a small amount of UNDUE. As long as we write it in an NPOV style (no easy task), it will be okay. We either need to include it mostly with quotations, or not at all, is my take. Otherwise it just feels too vague to be useful.

Leaning heavily on quotations will help. We just need to describe the notable controversy in the voice of the experts who find it notable. It was notable enough for that TWIV episode, so I suspect more quotes exist that we haven't found yet...

Tell me if that makes any sense, I know it's a convoluted solution.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I would strongly caution against a wider debate (i.e. RFC) on "scientific claim with unreliable sourcing (preprint) that has significant reliable news media sourcing" any time soon. In my experience there are (a) far too many Covid-related RFCs and (b) the voting (it's always a vote) is primarily focused on supporting whichever side you favour wrt Covid conspiracies/etc rather than giving one iota of thought to other biomedical articles (non-contentious and contentious) and (c) nobody takes the advice of the RFC team about how to formulate a good question. Covid is a topic where editing is not following the norms and where trying to establish general guidelines in order to resolve disputes there is really unwise. Look at the fallout from the MEDRS RFC, where we have some editors interpreting the result as "MEDRS sourcing is not required".

IMO the main thing is to stop thinking of the preprint as a source at all, just like I discussed earlier about Trump's bleach comment. We do have to watch that "discussing the controversy" doesn't become a mechanism to push fringe or novel/unaccepted viewpoints as though all scientists and their thoughts are equal. One of the tools used to push minority viewpoints is to persuade the public that scientists cannot agree, that there is no consensus and that all views are valid. My feeling was that this particular story reached a threshold of coverage by mainstream media. Not just the usual suspects who credulously report contentious opinions more than boring consensus opinion because it sells papers, but science magazines and respected science writers. There are and will be many other stories that don't make that threshold. So I'm afraid I don't think there will be a neat answer. -- Colin°^Talk 13:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin, Oh yes I am definitely not interested in any RFC about this, for exactly the reasons you describe. I'm sorry if that's how my comment sounded, it is definitely not my intention.

I think we need to cover this topic entirely sourced from secondary RSes about the "reaction" to the whole sequence database removal thing. (I'm sorry, controversy is the only real word that comes to mind). And mostly, in that way, as quotes from people whose opinions are relevant, in proportion to how widely shared those viewpoints are among experts. -- Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:02, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Recently I was reading Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign, the very last sentence of that lead is arguably a biomedical claim, sourced to a preprint on GitHub. It's by esteemed academics, though, and so I didn't think it was enough of a problem for removal. But the issue with scientific claims sourced to preprints spreads widely IMO. There does need to be a more general policy discussion on it at some point, but I agree with Colin's caution against such a change at this time. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, my indentation was confusing. I was reply to Bakkster Man. ProcrastinatingReader, that sentence on the Trump page is indeed a biomedical claim and shouldn't be sourced to primary research whether uploaded to github, a preprint server or published with fanfare in the Lancet. I'm not sure why anyone is in any doubt that it fails our sourcing requirements (whether MEDRS or core policy, which make the same demands). But I'm not about to start editing American politics articles. I do wish those editing covid topics would stop thinking "We disagree therefore we need a general policy discussion to resolve things". The disagreement arises from parties not wanting to follow guideline and policy because it prevents them pushing their agenda and POV on the project, not from those guideline and policy being unclear. There is an aspect where those fighting against such constant pushing can end up being too dogmatic and restrictive as a consequence of battle fatigue. But both are behavioural problems, not content guideline problems. -- Colin°^Talk 20:08, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's that clear. A lot of respectable editors add this stuff in good faith, and it's all over the place. That one is more obvious because it's biomedical, but it's usually scientific claims sourced to preprints or to news sources regurgitating a preprint. I personally think it's a grey area; though I've generally found it bad practice myself, I know others take different views. I have no vested interest in the question either way and I suspect others don't either, so I think your assessment that it's to push a preferred version is a bit off. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin, Yes I agree that Trump page sentence is BMI and should be covered by MEDRS. It's almost explicitly mentioned in BMI re: incidence and prevalence. It's just an inconvenience with the PAGs, those darn rules! But agree that I would personally not have sourced it that way. It is clearly not a MEDRS.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:28, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, the fact that you don't think it is clear doesn't mean that it is not clear. In the past, the usual practice was to post a question at WT:MED or some other noticeboard. These days, on anything covid related, folk seem to think to start an RFC. Wrt this practice I was speaking generally, and no doubt some other editors have just picked up the pathological practice. It doesn't stop it being pathological, and having roots in essentially disrupting Wikipedia by bogging things down in meta discussions about sourcing guidelines. -- Colin°^Talk 07:59, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Drbogdan, Colin, Bakkster Man, DGG and Template:Shibbolethink, Firefangledfeathers and ProcrastinatingReader, here are my belated edit proposals. Is this still a story? Absolutely. And it will just keep on giving. The data paucity issue is #1 priority for further investigation according to the WHO, and the WHO didn’t have access to these sequences, or any others from as early on as these are allegedly from... also, it makes no sense to delete sequences just because of a mistakenly deleted data availability statement by an editor...

Proposal #1

Drawn mainly from Nature Magazine, Washington Post, and the New York Times:

On June 22, 2021, a preprint paper describing the discovery of deleted sequence data from the pandemic's early stages triggered scientific intrigue, which was widely reported in the media.. Jesse Bloom, a viral evolutionary geneticist at Fred Hutch who authored the preprint was searching for genomic data from the pandemic' early stages, and discovered a May 2020 paper from University of Wuhan Researchers in Small containing a table of publicly available sequence data, but when searching for them in the NIH's Sequence Read Archive (SRA), they returned no entries. Bloom reached out to the authors of the paper but received no response. Bloom was later able to recover enough raw data from archived back ups to generate partial genome sequences, which he said could help to solve the evolutionary mystery about the early stages of the pandemic. Commenting for Nature Magazine, Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah pointed out that the sequences Bloom recovered were already described with enough sequence information to know their evolutionary relationship. Bloom said however, that though the sequences were published, their removal from the SRA meant that few scientists could know about them, including the World Health Organization, which had not included them in their report on the origins of the virus. Commenting for the Washington Post, Sergei Pond, a professor of biology at Temple University said "Even as few as 13 new sequences, which if you think about it, is a tiny amount, can fairly substantially modify the understanding of the pandemic origin". On Aug 1 2021, the New York Times reported that the sequences more than a year after they were deleted from the SRA, the sequences were "quietly uploaded" to a database maintained by China National Center for Bioinformation. The Times reported that according to an "odd explanation" from to Vice Minister of China’s National Health Commission Zeng Yixin, the editors at Small mistakenly deleted a data availability statement, prompting the authors to delete their data from SRA, but they did not respond to The Times on why they didn’t mention the journal’s error when they requested that the sequences be removed from the Sequence Read Archive, why they told the NIH that the sequences were being updated, or why they waited a year to upload them to another database. The Times confirmed this editorial error with an editor of Small, and in interview, Bloom commented commented that he is not in a position to "adjudicate among them", saying that it even if the sequence data was deleted due to editorial error, it is still worth looking for other sequences that might be lurking online.

Proposal #2

Drawn mainly from Nature Magazine, Science Magazine, and the New York Times:

On June 22, 2021, a preprint paper describing the discovery of deleted sequence data from the pandemic's early stages which could represent a progenitor SARS-CoV-2 which was widely reported in the media. Jesse Bloom, a viral evolutionary geneticist at Fred Hutch who authored the preprint was searching for genomic data from the pandemic' early stages, and discovered a May 2020 paper from University of Wuhan Researchers in Small containing a table of publicly available sequence data, but when searching for them in the NIH's Sequence Read Archive (SRA), they returned no entries. Bloom reached out to the authors of the paper but received no response. Bloom was later able to recover enough raw data from archived back ups to generate partial genome sequences, which he said could help to solve the evolutionary mystery about the early stages of the pandemic. Commenting for Science Magazine, Andrew Rambaut at the University of Edinburgh said Bloom’s finding was "much ado about nothing", and that the idea that the group was trying to hide something was "farcical", as the Wuhan scientists had later published the information in a different form, and that the lack three mutations Bloom had noted were not enough to distinguish the "roots" of the SARS-CoV-2 family tree. Bloom however acknowledged that the sequence were available in tables in the Small paper, but said most virologists expect to be able to download whole viral genomes from a database like the SRA, and were therefore not included even in the World Health Organization’s report on the origins of the virus. Commenting also for Science Magazine, Sudhir Kumar of Temple University said "Even as few as 13 new sequences, which if you think about it, is a tiny amount, can fairly substantially modify the understanding of the pandemic origin". On Aug 1 2021, the New York Times reported that the sequences more than a year after they were deleted from the SRA, the sequences were "quietly uploaded" to a database maintained by China National Center for Bioinformation. The Times reported that according to an "odd explanation" from to Vice Minister of China’s National Health Commission Zeng Yixin, the editors at Small mistakenly deleted a data availability statement, prompting the authors to delete their data from SRA, but they did not respond to The Times on why they didn’t mention the journal’s error when they requested that the sequences be removed from the Sequence Read Archive, why they told the NIH that the sequences were being updated, or why they waited a year to upload them to another database. The Times confirmed this editorial error with an editor of Small, and in interview, Bloom commented commented that he is not in a position to "adjudicate among them", saying that it even if the sequence data was deleted due to editorial error, it is still worth looking for other sequences that might be lurking online.

Feedback welcome! CutePeach (talk) 05:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

New Lancet letter

Update from last year's letter. [57] Bakkster Man (talk) 16:41, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Very interesting. With the new letter, the conspiracy theory is dead in the western world. The authors no longer speak of its existence. We should delete the conspiration saga in all related WP articles. It's history. If there is any evidence of the laboratory hypothesis - these scientists would run the risk of sustaining massive reputational damage not only concerning their research and personal reputation - also for science at all. The German magazine Spiegel published a very large cover story on the Wuhan Institute this week. --Empiricus (talk) 21:35, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence in the scientific literature is that the virus evolved in nature, while suggestions of a laboratory-leak source of the pandemic remain without scientifically validated evidence that directly supports it in peer-reviewed scientific journals. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:24, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

It´s the old argument with "scientific literature" - but there is no empirical evidence. As long as the transmission animal has not been found, there is no evidence. Sure, the laboratory-leak has also no validated evidence (until now) but the serious difference is that the authors can no longer exclude this hypothesis or discriminate the laboratory option as a conspiracy theory. This position is history with the new letter.--Empiricus (talk) 08:43, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

This sentence massively relativizes the old letter: "Careful and transparent collection of scientific information is essential to understand how the virus has spread and to develop strategies to mitigate the ongoing impact of COVID-19, whether it occurred wholly within nature or might somehow have reached the community via an alternative route, and prevent future pandemics."--Empiricus (talk) 08:53, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

the old argument with "scientific literature" is still good. It is to be found in WP:RS too: When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources

Your WP:OR about empirical evidence is worthless in Wikipedia. We go with RS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Just because it has always been the case does not mean that it is the case now. For laboratory accidents e.g. with SARS there is a lot of evidence in the literature or e.g. Marburg, etc.. The origin question can only be answered by empirical evidence - scientific, also in Wikipedia. Otherwise, we would not need any investigations, which everyone also the Lancet Group - is demanding now. It´s not WP:OR - it´s simply science.--Empiricus (talk) 13:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Empiricus-sextus: With the new letter, the conspiracy theory is dead in the western world. The authors no longer speak of its existence. We should delete the conspiration saga in all related WP articles. Related purely to the WHO-evaluated lab-origin (WIV gathers bat viruses, accidental infection of staff), I agree. But there are other conspiracy theories which are still very much conspiracy theories per reliable sources.

• The conspiracy theory it was being developed by WIV as a bioweapon
• The conspiracy theory it was being developed at Fort Detrick as a bioweapon
• The conspiracy theory the virus was manufactured so to promote the sale of vaccines
• The conspiracy theory Bill Gates asked them to manufacture the virus to control the world's population

And those are just the conspiracy theories relating to a laboratory origin (add meteorites and 5G). So while we need to carefully word to not imply every lab origin is a conspiracy theory, there remain lab origin scenarios accurately described as conspiracy theories. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:16, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but this are studip fring theories -like the frozen food thesis - without any public relevance, that's not even worth talking about. Maybe only as missinformation. It will be very interesting to see what the Biden report says about the laboratory, since a senior official, China's deputy security minister, is said to have deserted to the United States. --Empiricus (talk) 14:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but this are studip fring theories -like the frozen food thesis - without any public relevance, that's not even worth talking about. Stupid? Absolutely! "Without public relevance"? Seems pretty relevant to me if multiple US representatives are repeating the bioweapon claim.[58][59][60] Bakkster Man (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

The sources say more about "Facebook censorship". As far as the possibility of military preventive research under the Biological Weapons Convention is concerned - it is not unusual and it is also legal (Source: - Role of Chinese military lab, page 3)."The United States has a number of high-containment laboratories in which viruses can be studied safely with engineering controls, including negative air pressure. Some of these labs are located at military laboratories, such as the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland. China, France, Germany, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and many other countries similarly have laboratories operated by military researchers that are declared to the Biological Weapons Convention in confidence building measures. Scientific investigation in military laboratories is not uncommon; coronavirus research performed in a Chinese military research institute is not in itself suspicious, as asserted". The only problem for years is that these experiments are not transparent. The German government and others have long called for clarification here. There are X programs, also in the US also China - where "quasi bioweapons" are developed - with the aim to protect against them.--Empiricus (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

You didn't read this source, then. It doesn't mention Facebook a single time, and the headline is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggests COVID-19 was 'bioweapon,' demands Fauci be held accountable. So I again assert that three members of the US congress claiming in public that China developed COVID as a weapon makes that repeating of the conspiracy theory of great public relevance. Want to change my mind? Address that directly. Bakkster Man (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Although I'm on wikibreak, since I logged in for another reason I just resist as I saw this discussion earlier when looking to see if the latest pre-print [61] to make the news [62] [63] [64] [65] has made it here yet. Interesting enough AFAICT it hasn't yet although I can't help thinking it would have if it were in the opposite direction.

@Empiricus-sextus: "since a senior official, China's deputy security minister, is said to have deserted to the United States" you seem to be referring to Dong Jingwei but I'm fairly sure only crazy people are still saying this so I suggest if you're reading such sources you may want to discard them at least for when it comes to editing Wikipedia. As per our article, an unnamed senior US official took the unusual step of definitively denying it only a few days after the reports began to spread (and over 2 weeks ago). This was followed soon after by a photo of Dong doing his official duties after this alleged defection.

So it can only be true if there is some crazy stuff going e.g. body doubles or China manipulating photos to hide a truth which will surely be self evident if true, sometime in the near future. That's the sort of stuff which North Korean and perhaps Comical Ali may pull or *cough* *cough* a former US president I won't name, but China? Whatever their flaws, yeah, nah.

And the US for some reason is also seemingly wishing to hide something which China (the only ones they have good reason to want to hit from) surely already knows if true, rather than just let it remain in mystery until they reveal all. The other even crazier possibility is that he defected for a few days but then went back and was allowed to serve in his old role, at least publicly. Again, any source which believes all this probably shouldn't be trusted.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The addendum adding Peter Daszak's conflicts of interest to the original Lancet letter is revealing. A bit more than a year late High Tinker (talk) 14:52, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Just a note that the typical argument that if not all sources mention it, it's not relevant (like that it was and remains also pushed by conspiracy theorists), is flawed. —PaleoNeonate – 00:48, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the Member State Information Session on Origins

16th July remarks of WHO Director-General are out. Link here. Transcription here:

Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all Member States, and thank you for joining us for this special briefing on the steps that WHO is taking to identify the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

As you know, at the end of March this year, the WHO-led international scientific team delivered its report following its mission to China in January, in line with World Health Assembly resolution 73.1.

That report filled in several knowledge gaps, and identified areas for further study.

Earlier this week, Member States received a circular letter detailing the proposed next steps that the Secretariat will take to advance those studies, in several areas:

First, integrated studies of humans, wildlife, captive and farmed animals, and environment, as part of a One Health approach.

Second, studies prioritizing geographic areas with the earliest indication of circulation of SARS-CoV-2, and neighbouring areas where other SARS-related coronaviruses have been found in non-human reservoirs;

Third, studies of animal markets in and around Wuhan, including continuing studies on animals sold at the Huanan wholesale market;

Fourth, studies related to animal trace-back activities, with additional epidemiology and molecular epidemiology work, including early sequences of the virus;

And fifth, audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019.

The Secretariat will continue to develop operational plans and terms of reference for the next series of studies, in collaboration and consultation with Member States and the international scientific community.

I thank China and the other Member States who wrote to me yesterday, and I agree that finding the origins of this virus is a scientific exercise that must be kept free from politics.

For that to happen, we expect China to support this next phase of the scientific process by sharing all relevant data in a spirit of transparency. Equally, we expect all Member States to support the scientific process by refraining from politicising it.

Finding where this virus came from is essential not just for understanding how the pandemic started and preventing future outbreaks, but it’s also important as an obligation to the families of the 4 million people who have lost someone they love, and the millions who have suffered.

But we also know that SARS-CoV-2 will not be the last new pathogen with pandemic potential. There will be more, and we will need to understand the origins of those pathogens too.

It is therefore our view that the world needs a more stable and predictable framework for studying the origins of new pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential.

Accordingly, I am pleased to announce that the Secretariat is establishing a permanent International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO.

SAGO will play a vital role in the next phase of studies into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, as well as the origins of future new pathogens.

Members of this new advisory group will be selected based on their technical expertise, taking into account geographical representation and gender balance.

We will soon be launching an open call for nominations, including from Member States, for highly-qualified experts to join SAGO. As required, the Secretariat will also appoint technical advisors to SAGO.

Dr Mike Ryan and Dr Maria Van Kerkhove will say more about this new approach shortly.

As always, we are grateful for your engagement, and we look forward to your questions, comments, input and guidance.

I thank you.

Since this is a controversial area of editing, please read carefully the statement above, and comment on whether some of it merits inclusion here. Forich (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, I think it's a very good statement, and i think it's great that that is the official position of Tedros. I hope the WHO is able to actually conduct all the investigations he details here, that would be really good. But I'm not sure anything in here is novel enough to merit inclusion in this article. We must avoid undue quotations, and especially avoid WP:RECENTISM. I think covering everything Tedros says with a fine tooth comb would not be appropriate. What specifically did you have in mind?--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:22, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Looks promising. Do we have some links to secondary sources we can take a look at, to see what secondary sources think are the most important parts of this statement? –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:, I plan on including this fact Finding where this virus came from is essential not just for understanding how the pandemic started, because it is sometimes challenged by journalists and commentators that say that it changes nothing to know where the virus comes from, and that is simply wrong. Forich (talk) 17:17, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich, I would tell you to put it in attributed quotation, but yes I agree that is definitely DUE for inclusion. It's heavily covered as an opinion of Tedros.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

"Reactions" section reverses scientific consensus

The current "Reactions" to the WHO report section is, with the exception of one sentence, wholly dedicated to criticizing or dismissing its findings. From the way the reactions section is written a fully scientifically naïve reader will naturally come to the opposite conclusion of the current scientific consensus: our text strongly indicates that the conclusions of the report are fundamentally flawed.

This is a deeply disingenuous method of describing the report - rather than attacking the conclusions directly, attempting to emphasize doubts about report credibility overall - and does not convey how scientists have reacted to it. I think we need to just rewrite this whole section and I've attempted to so. -Darouet (talk) 07:16, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I would agree that it seems like there was a POV WP:COATRACK here. Over time, we had hung every criticism on this section, until it completely changed the meaning and obscured what our sources were telling us about the overall reaction to the report. I support your rewrite, I think it's much closer to NPOV.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Darouet, are you aware that the Reaction section is not about the report, but about reactions to the report? The reactions to the WHO-convened study have largely been critical, which is exactly why the Reactions section is largely critical. Your rewrite fails WP:FALSEBALANCE as it puts a positive spin to it. Please note also that there is no scientific consensus on the origins of the virus, yet. CutePeach (talk) 13:44, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the negative reactions to this scientific report overewhelmingly come from scientific nobodies. You may not be interested in the difference between competent criticism and ignorant disagreement, weighing them both using a head count instead, but that is your personal problem. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Oh wow Hob Gadling, so Tony Fauci and Francis Collins are scientific nobodies? Ignorant disagreement? What? Francesco espo (talk) 23:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Francesco espo, Could you provide a RS on Fauci's and Collins' response to the WHO report? From what I've seen, the only RS we have on Fauci's opinion is that he wanted to "reserve judgment" back at the end of March [66]. And of course that he thinks "more investigation is needed" but so do most scientists [67]. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, there are so many sources from Fauci saying this, like here. Here is a source from today with Collins. I also saw Fauci say it on Television here in Italy so it must be also on American television. Collins is his boss, so more relevant. How can Hob Gadling call them scientific nobodies? Why is this page protected? Francesco espo (talk) 00:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Francesco espo, Could you provide quotations which demonstrate that? Because I read the WashPo article before you linked it even, searching for ones where he comments on the report. And, to be honest, I don't see him commenting on the report anywhere in there. The FoxNews segment (your second link) is not a RS. And where it directly replays his statements or interviews him, he isn't commenting on the WHO report, he's commenting on how the NIH did not fund GoFR for coronaviruses and how more investigation is needed. I was asking for quotations about the report.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:08, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Independently of the actual truth of your claims about who said what, go get someone to explain to you the difference between "overwhelmingly" and "exclusively". But maybe it is not independent: maybe the same difficulties you have understanding what I wrote in plain English also made you misunderstand what Fauci and Collins said. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink The quote from the WaPo is: “Because we don’t know 100 percent what the origin is, it’s imperative that we look and we do an investigation,” Fauci said. Why is Fox News not a reliable source? It is just airing an interview with Collins? Is there something wrong with their reporting? Is it contradicted by something we have in other reliable sources? Most of the reactions to the report have been negative, including the WHO DG. He is scientists too. Is he not? Francesco espo (talk) 00:21, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Francesco espo, See WP:FOXNEWS for why Fox is likely not reliable for this, outside of direct attributed quotations. Which in this case, would need to be about the report. And that quote appears to be about how "more investigation is needed," not criticizing the report. It does not use the words "report" or "WHO" in any way.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I didn't look at the Fox News article that can be ignored, but from what is quoted, there is nothing particularly interesting here... Policy that relates to the original post from Darouet is WP:GEVAL and WP:YESPOV: it's important to attribute as opinions what is, to distinguish it from more authoritative statements that can often be made in Wikipedia's voice and where undue, opinion can simply be omitted to avoid presenting a false balance. —PaleoNeonate – 00:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

What We Know About the Origins of COVID-19

From a June 26, 2021 article in WSJ (a reliable source):[68]

A WHO-led inquiry into the origins of the virus was stymied from the start. An investigation found China resisted international pressure for an investigation it saw as an attempt to assign blame, delayed the probe for months, secured veto rights over participants and insisted its scope encompass other countries as well. The WHO-led team that traveled to China in early 2021 to investigate the origins of the virus struggled to get a clear picture of what research China was conducting beforehand, faced constraints during its monthlong visit and had little power to conduct thorough, impartial research without the blessing of China’s government. In their final report, the investigators said insufficient evidence meant they couldn’t yet resolve when, where and how the virus began spreading.

China withheld data on potential early cases and delayed sharing information on animals sold at a market where the first cluster was found. Chinese authorities refused to provide WHO investigators with raw data on confirmed and potential early Covid-19 cases that could help determine how and when the coronavirus first began to spread in China. Chinese researchers also directed a U.S. government archive to delete gene sequences of early Covid-19 cases, removing an important clue.

If the virus truly originated in the wild, why would China hide information and delete data and be so secretive? The way this current article is written makes it seem like an accidental leak from WIV is still some outlandish claim, even though many scientists and reliable sources disagree. This article needs more balance and due weight given to the most likely scenario for the origin of the virus which is an inadvertant lab leak. Yodabyte (talk) 16:51, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

"If the virus truly originated in the wild, why would China hide information and delete data and be so secretive?" - Authoritarian regimes tend to be secretive by nature; see the paragraphs at the bottom here (starting with "Think of it this way. What country would welcome investigators [...]"); and also the comparison with the now infamous WMDs in Iraq here. The WSJ piece is already cited. The rest appears to be WP:OR, and is not supported by the vast majority of reliable sources, even newspapers (most of which will correctly tell you that the mainstream scientific view is that the virus likely came from nature). This article already gives more than enough weight to the "inadvertant lab leak", considering how that hypothesis is received in the peer-reviewed, WP:SCHOLARSHIP sources on which we should be basing this (see WP:NOLABLEAK for a sampling). FWIW, you should read the paragraph at the bottom of the Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#International_calls_for_investigations section... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:44, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

"Authoritarian regimes tend to be secretive by nature" - don't you think an authoritarian regime that has imprisoned millions of ethnic minorities in forced labor camps and concentration camps would try to deceive the world from finding out how the virus originated? The Guardian article you referenced says this "team members were sceptical of the lab leak theory after their visit, on the basis of what they were allowed to see – although that does not rule other material having been hidden. And China, as the WHO’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, made clear, did not provide all the information. Common sense says if China has data/evidence that the virus originated outside of the lab they would share that with WHO team members (in other words it's logical to conclude there very likely was a lab leak origin).

Here is another Guardian article I re-read recently about how the Chinese communist party controls the narrative and censors any debate on the origins of the virus: China is cracking down on publication of academic research about the origins of the novel coronavirus, in what is likely to be part of a wider attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic. Yodabyte (talk) 21:53, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Yodabyte: Common sense says if China has data/evidence that the virus originated outside of the lab they would share that with WHO team members (in other words it's logical to conclude there very likely was a lab leak origin). Not only does WP:NOCOMMON and WP:CK suggest we should be careful here, you already stated that they're an authoritarian regime which "would try to deceive the world from finding out how the virus originated". Whatever the origin may be, you've made the argument that it's also common sense that they'd hide the natural origins of the virus. Even before asking whether it's common sense that they'd be less inclined to be open in the face of accusations of impropriety. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Hob Gadling/Bakkster Man I'm making the opposite argument - the most likely reason China is not being transparent with neutral, scientific, apolitical entities like the WHO is because they know there was an accidental leak from the WIV and sharing that with the world would obviously be very damaging. The argument that because they are an authoritarian regime they don't share any info doesn't hold up in a situation where a pandemic has caused millions of deaths across the globe. This is an extremely serious issue, if we cannot determine how the virus originated (whether in the wild or in a lab) we could experience another pandemic in the next few years. Again, why is China hiding information, deleting data, and overall not being transparent in a situation as dangerous as this, what could possibly be the innocent explanation? Yodabyte (talk) 19:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That's the thing with "common sense" (aka, WP:OR), it's not so universal. You think it's more likely one way, I think the other. Without a reliable source, we can't say one way or the other in the article. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Bakkster Man - you completely ignored the points about China's behavior, and also the relevant questions, and simply brought up WP:OR, which is unrelated to this specific discussion and the issues I'm bringing up about the strong likelihood of a lab leak (accidental) origin. Yodabyte (talk) 20:01, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Not ignored, I simply disagree that they 'most likely' fit a lab leak. There's other explanations, you've just chosen to believe it's indicative of one of them. And we can't change the article because you feel that way. We have to cite it to some other source, and a reliable one at that. Find that source, then we can talk. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

"what could possibly be the innocent explanation" -- who said the explanation is innocent? By rote, China hides information that could possibly be damaging or embarrassing; they don't do so only for information that they have formally proven is bad for them. That China has destroyed and hidden information makes it harder to answer the question, but it tells us nothing about what the answer is. In any case, none of this is remotely relevant here. WP:FORUM I agree with your original statement that "The way this current article is written makes it seem like an accidental leak from WIV is still some outlandish claim, even though many scientists and reliable sources disagree", but arguing likelihood based on China's behavior is a totally different thing. The task is to round up those reliable sources, and that takes work. I know they exist though, as I have seen detailed discussions on this matter among neutral scientists and science journalists. -- Jibal (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That's all WP:OR. We trust scientists publishing in peer-reviewed journals, not the "common sense" of Wikipedia editors. China being authoritarian is not evidence for the lab leak. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:15, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but China covering up and deleting data and not sharing information with WHO team members is. Yodabyte (talk) 23:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

No, it is not. As outlined above, they will refuse to share information no matter what, because they are an authoritarian regime. Kind of like the US military being secretive about UFOs does not mean UFOs are alien spacecraft, it just means military types being typical military types. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes but there is a big difference between potential secret advanced military vehicles and a virus which has spread across the globe and killed millions. We should know more about both but keeping information on one is not identical to hiding data and information about the origin of the virus, one is much more egregious than the other. Yodabyte (talk) 14:46, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

What matters is what published peer reviewed secondary sources have said, not what we feel in our hearts or are “suspicious of” about China. We also have most of these criticisms in one form or another already in the article. Not much to add here...—Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I am just telling you that your logic is invalid. The UFO thing was just an example to illustrate why, and pointing out the differences between the actual case and the example is pointless. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Are peer reviewed articles secondary sources? Pkeets (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Only if they are review articles, which is what we use in this article. if you find some primary research articles in the mix, let me know, and I will try and find some review articles which corroborate the details. If I can't find any secondary RSes, we could remove the citation and challenge the content etc. This is the process...--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Calls to investigate a laboratory leak reached a "fever pitch," fueling antipathy towards people of Asian ancestry

An editor continues to re-insert this bizarre text "In the United States, calls to investigate a laboratory leak reached a fever pitch, fueling antipathy towards people of Asian ancestry". Just to understand better, if a person thinks an inquiry into the possibility the virus leaked (accidentally) from a lab is warranted, that somehow "fuels antipathy" toward Asian people? This sounds like a non-sequitur and only seems to be sourced to two sources. Should this text be removed? Yodabyte (talk) 14:56, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

This text should be reworded to better distinguish that there's a "aggressive rhetoric" which has been linked to harassment of those perceived to be of Asian descent and of scientists, per the sources. Not the calls for investigations per-se, just those going the extra step of "blame[ing] COVID on China" or making threats against those who happen to dispute the lab hypothesis. I made an attempt to make this more clear, and I think clarity is the path forward rather than removal. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Who would have thought that blaming a virus on China and "scientists playing God" would lead to bullying of Asian people and scientists? Insert ironic "surprised" meme here. That aside, Bakkster Man seems to have done a fine job clearing up the confusion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:56, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The way to better understanding is to apply the Principle of Charity, not to attack a strawman. The language does not state or imply that a person such as you or I thinking an inquiry is warranted fuels antipathy. What it plainly says is that the "fever pitch" of the calls fueled it. Personally I think it was more a matter of political exploitation of antipathy being used to push the lab-leak hypothesis in order to shift blame for the consequences of the virus to China. Unfortunately, that led to a knee-jerk reaction to the hypothesis among scientists, journalists, and others that is still in play and is reflected in this article, which quite misrepresents the current scientific view with its very misleading lede; that view is not captured in one report or another precisely because there's no consensus. From the perspective of scientific objectivity, neither a lab leak nor zoonotic origin has sufficient evidence to support a scientific consensus. That lack of evidence is due in part to China destroying or hiding evidence for its own political reasons. That's unfortunate, but it also doesn't tell us what the answer is. -- Jibal (talk) 22:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Jibal, What exactly do you think is the scientific consensus? Personally, I would say it is: "zoonotic/natural origin is more likely, but lab leak is worth investigating."

My reasons for this are WP:OR and mainly have to do with being a virologist and having lots of virologist friends who think this way, but... It also happens to be the scientific view depicted in most RSes, as shown in WP:NOLABLEAK and this sources section on the newly created COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis page.

Most scientists still think the zoonotic/natural origin is more likely, given the lack of hard scientific evidence supporting the lab leak hypothesis. But to these same people, it's plausible enough that it's worth investigating.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:26, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I told you -- there is no scientific consensus. Saying that some hypothesis is more likely because there isn't hard evidence for some other hypothesis is not a scientific consensus. Maybe read up on what a scientific consensus is. Also read up on Baysian analysis ... a probability claim based on missing evidence is not reliable; as I've said, China destroyed and hid evidence, so no wonder there's no hard evidence for the lab leak--because the relevant evidence one way or the other is missing. Anyway, this isn't a blog, I don't like to repeat myself, and I'm not here to chitchat, especially with people who pay no attention to what I write: "there's no consensus". Over and out. -- Jibal (talk) 00:30, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

One more thing: WP:NOLABLEAK is a one-sided argument. A balanced argument is possible--I've seen them. But when people are entrenched in the view that there are no valid counterarguments, then they keep confirming that view with references that support it, never seeking any that don't. -- Jibal (talk) 00:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Jibal, I would encourage you to search this talk page's archives for our many many discussions on what "counts" as a consensus. We have talked about it here so many times, each time coming to a rough consensus on what the scientific consensus is, often based on WP:MEDRS criteria. Specifically check out #4 on the list of things we have wikipedia agreement on at the top of this page.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:41, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Why the heck would I want to waste my time doing that? I know very well what a scientific consensus is, and that an assertion that some hypothesis is more likely because there isn't hard evidence for some other hypothesis is not one. I don't care what consensus has been reached here on what a consensus is because I am not currently calling for changes to the page... not until and unless I can gather RS that support claims I would like it to make. You asked me a question that I had already answered. As I noted, I don't like talking with people who do that. The conversation here has veered far off the purpose of this page. Please leave me alone. -- Jibal (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Changing stance of experts regarding possible lab leak

Yesterday I inserted the word "initial" into the "Laboratory leak" subsection. It was reverted. I've restored it and added a source.

I had not looked at the Talk page before making the simple addition and had no idea this was such a big deal. Now I've skimmed this page.

Yesterday I had intended to add an update to that subsection to note that the WHO Director-General said, "The second is there was a premature push to especially reduce one of the options like the lab theory. As you know, I was a lab technician myself, an immunologist and I have worked in the lab and lab accidents happen. It's common; I have seen it happening and I have myself had errors so it can happen." (Find it at 00:26:30 on this transcript or videotaped here.) I ran out of time. YoPienso (talk) 17:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Please give me a few minutes to add an update. YoPienso (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Has the WHO formally retracted the report or its findings? Have the report's authors issued an official statement saying that they no longer believe the lab leak is "extremely unlikely" ? If neither of those things are true, then we cannot say that the WHO report considered it unlikely in the past, but no longer. We cannot say it "formerly" considered it unlikely. Because the report still considers it unlikely. Tedros does not speak for the report's authors. We do not quote President Biden to decide what "America" thinks, and even moreso what a commission of american experts think. We must be precise when we refer to these things. We cannot conflate Commissioner General Tedros with the WHO report's authors, they are quite distinct.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:11, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

No, they haven't. This is a case where a spokesperson, while making "official statements", injected a personal comment that may not be representative of the organization itself. By definition, a "lab technician" and spokesperson is not the type of "expert" we look to for determining scientific consensus. The stance of experts has not changed and this is just another case of trying to strongarm something into this article to fit one's personal beliefs. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@Berchanhimez: Please retract your misguided ad hominem remark. YoPienso (talk) 21:07, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: Thanks for your work here. I see your point about conflating the Director-General with the authors. One suggestion, which I'll go ahead and implement in the lead, is to change "has said" to "later said." YoPienso (talk) 21:07, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

It makes no sense to say that a report "initially" said something unless it was later revised under the same title. And what Tedros said has no bearing on what the content of the report is. He is just another public figure, including the biologists who wrote the letter to Science, who have said that there was a rush to judgment and that further investigation is warranted. I think these statements are clearly germane to this article, which has "Investigations" in its title (while the content has become more like "what most scientists think is the origin and why"), but they have to be carefully framed and they aren't really about the lab leak hypothesis per se. On that score, I believe that there is missing material, for instance statements from reliable sources (not to be found in the pre-concluded WP:NOLABLEAK) arguing for the plausibility of the lab leak hypothesis, and RS statements that the establishment of a lab leak depends on the sort of data that has been destroyed (largely for aggressively defensive political reasons, so the destruction itself lends no support to the hypothesis), so even if the hypothesis is veridical, we will likely never know. OTOH, if the origin is zoonotic, we may eventually find the vector. Unless and until that happens, it is unlikely that there will be a scientific consensus about the origin; certainly nothing like the degree--or, I would argue, the type--that we have for AGW (which is a statement of fact, not mere likelihood) that can be established by concurrence of over 97% of authors and peer-reviewed papers in a very large collection of same. -- Jibal (talk) 21:10, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that there's not a single scientific paper in reputable journals which "supports" the lab leak. Of the few that do mention it, their description of it ranges from "conspiracy theory" to "unnecessary to explain the pandemic" to "possibly but [varying degree of] unlikely". I mean, yes, sure, you can find a few dubious papers supporting the lab leak - as you can find dubious publications denying climate change, or promoting various similar things like anti-vax or the like. Doesn't mean that there is no scientific consensus. WP:FALSEBALANCE is rather clear that "plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship". I don't think there's any dispute possible that

• A) The majority hypothesis amongst the scientific community is zoonotic origin; and
• B) The one scenario of a lab leak that is plausible (i.e. not ruled out by scientists) is also certainly "currently unaccepted" by the same scientific community.

So, yes, the lab leak is a notable idea, and certainly warrants mention where its omission would be a major error of omission, such as in the description of the four hypotheses covered by the WHO report, or when discussing the political and social ramifications of this. But writing of it as equally credible to the mainstream view would mislead the reader and not serve any encyclopedic purpose whatsoever. See WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:Academic bias. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

References

A problem is that you cannot prove your first statement, and I am not certain that is true. And any paper that calls some hypothesis a conspiracy theory is not a scientific paper--at least not in biology; possibly sociology. As for credibility, I have never argued that they are equally credible, and it would certainly be very wrong to leave that impression, and my measure of the credibility of the lab leak hypothesis has decreased after reading and studying https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/. But my view is that zoonotic origin cannot be scientifically established until the vector is identified, that "X is likely" is not a scientific claim and a consensus that X is "likely" is certainly not a scientific consensus of X. In any case, my personal views aren't relevant, and I am not at this point calling for any changes to the article, so I'm going to stop commenting or responding until/unless that changes. -- Jibal (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@Jibal: You're likely correct that I can't prove a negative (that there exists no credible paper which supports this). What I can tell you with certainty is that, of those sources I have found and have had time to check, none do. What I have also done is add some to support the statements above, if you were not sure. In particular, the paper by Frutos et al., which focuses on this topic, is an interesting read and might give you a hint at where I'm coming from with this. The recent article from Snopes you mention also makes a good debunking of most claims regarding this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:34, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Science 101: If a statement can not be proven even if it is true, but can be easily disproven if it is false, then the statement is the default, and the burden of proof lies on those who claim it is false.

Find that "single scientific paper in reputable journals which "supports" the lab leak", and you win: yes, it is a scientific hypothesis. Until then, you lose. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:30, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

It's not new and various sources have documented the inconsistency between the director's statements and the team's conclusions and have reported about the team complaining that he should support them instead, some are in the history of this page. It would indeed be inappropriate to attempt to balance the two. —PaleoNeonate – 00:03, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

WHO Report and Responses in Lead

Following this post from Forich [69], I have rewritten the portion of the lead detailing the chronology of events surrounding the March 30 2021 WHO report, the WHO DG’s same day response, and the WHO members nations’ same day response - as well as the more recent news from July 15 2021 with the WHO DG’s statement of "premature push" and yesterday's response from China calling off the second phase.

1. I have taken out the Los Angeles Times, which was cited WRT deploying additional missions, which is something that was said in the WHO DG’s March 30 statement. I used a Nature source for citation of that earlier statement, as I thought it was better and more relevant. I would not oppose adding back the Los Angeles Times piece for that statement, if any editor wishes to do so.
2. If there are any WP:MOSLEAD or WP:FALSEBALANCE concerns in the way I have presented the order of events, I would ask Shibbolethink and Mikehawk10 to collaborate in formulating an RFC, to make sure it is WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Editors are reminded that deleting content for WP:NPOV concerns is WP:POVDELETION.
3. I have deleted the POV loaded sentence Echoing the assessment of most virologists, as most virologists didn't actually make an assessment, as they didn't have the data to do so.

CutePeach (talk) 15:40, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

• "Deleting content for POV reasons" is a correct application of WP:ONUS. If you are aware your changes might be contentious, caution dictates you should seek consensus first, instead of pointing to an explanatory supplement which in no way actually prohibits removal of particularly contentious material. Collaboration is required, because this is a collaborative project. You should follow the advice of WP:BRDD and try to find compromise instead of making unilateral changes. I've partially reverted, since your explanation about the "assessment of other virologists" is OR. Please cite a credible source which makes the same point if you disagree. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:06, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

It is also ironic that you point to POVDELETION, yet do the exact same thing you are claiming we shouldn't do, by removing content which has long-standing consensus for inclusion because of POV concerns. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:14, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Broken citation in lead

Someone extended-confirmed needs to fix the missing <ref> tag. Thanks! Elle Kpyros (talk) 18:25, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Ekpyros, Is it still there? I couldn't find one missing... Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Shibbolethink, nope—seems to have been resolved! Thanks! Elle Kpyros (talk) 15:10, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

We should not use Global Times as a source

@Pakbelang: we should not use Global Times as a source for controversial content like this, and this is likely why multiple users have reverted your addition. See WP:GLOBALTIMES. I also want you to know that your edits are messing with the Bloomberg news references, causing them to display the "Are you a robot?" title instead of the actual article title. Please don't use the Ref Toolbar that way, it doesn't work for Bloomberg. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:03, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink:f Thanks. I see now that there's a problem. Is the UPI reference okay for this do you think? --Pakbelang (talk) 00:08, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Happy to help :) If you mean the United Press international, I would say that also probably is unreliable for this claim, as it's owned by the same people as The Washington Times, and often has a very similar political bend. Likely not useful for determining whether such content is WP:DUE. I would personally suggest a more mainstream source for that.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:24, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The Chinese claims have been reported in enough independent sources that we don't need to cite their official mouthpiece (there's a subsection about the claims at the misinformation article). However, it still brings up the question whether this is something that really needs to be reported here (as opposed to keeping it at the misinformation article, where it rightfully belongs as an example of disinformation). Additionally, the Chinese claims (which are not even remotely plausible, unlike the more familiar version promoted in US media, which at least is possible although extremely unlikely) do not appear to have lead to any significant political or scientific developments, unlike those in the Western media. I'm not sure they're proper for this article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:53, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: The Chinese disinformation is an important development in the framing of the Wuhan lab-leak investigations. Pakbelang (talk) 23:18, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Framing would merit inclusion here, but we would need a source explicitly talking about that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:26, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

True. The recent NYT article mentions the Chinese demands in this context – I'll add it as a reference. Pakbelang (talk) 08:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I couldn't access the NYT article, I found a similar article in Foreign Policy and have added that.Pakbelang (talk) 08:29, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Reactions to the Phase 1 WHO report - again

The current text says:

Nature news described the 300-page report as the result of a "major investigation," stemming from the work of 34 international scientists, SARS-CoV-2 genome tests in early patients, analyses of nearly 1,000 samples from the Huanan Market and from hundreds of market animals, analyses of death certificates, and interviews with researchers at the WIV. A small number of researchers said that they would not trust the report's conclusions because it was overseen by the Chinese government, but other scientists found the report convincing, and said there was no evidence of a laboratory origin for the virus.

After the publication of the report, politicians, talk show hosts, journalists, and some scientists advanced unsupported claims that SARS-CoV-2 may have come from the WIV. In the United States, calls to investigate a laboratory leak reached a "fever pitch," fueling aggressive rhetoric resulting in antipathy towards people of Asian ancestry, and the bullying of scientists. The United States, European Union, and 13 other countries criticised the WHO-convened study, calling for transparency from China and access to the raw data and original samples. Chinese officials described these criticisms as an attempt to politicise the study. Scientists involved in the WHO report, including Liang Wannian, John Watson, and Peter Daszak, objected to the criticism, and said that the report was an example of the collaboration and dialogue required to successfully continue investigations into the matter.

In a letter published in Science, a number of scientists, including Ralph Baric, argued that the accidental laboratory leak hypothesis had not been sufficiently investigated and remained possible, calling for greater clarity and additional data. Their letter was criticized by some virologists and public health experts, who said that a "hostile" and "divisive" focus on the WIV was unsupported by evidence, and would cause Chinese scientists and authorities to share less, rather than more data.

The main sources of this text are:

• Maxmen (March, 2021) in Nature News
• Maxmen (May, 2021) in Nature News

In my opinion, Wikipedia's coverage of the reception of the report needs to account for these:

1. Tedros comments to the report in March 2021
2. The reception from scientists at the time it got published in March 2021
3. The reception from the 14 countries who issued a statement in March 2021
4. The reception from open letters of scientists a few days after the report was released

Some of these receptions received counter comments from the Chinese government and the members of the WHO team, and its fair to include them too.

In the next comments I will post suggestions to improve each of the reception items above, pingin @Darouet:.Forich (talk) 04:34, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Tedros comments

Maxmen (March, 2021): After the report’s publication, the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was not directly involved with the investigation, posted a statement saying that he looks forward to future studies of the coronavirus’s animal origins — but that he wasn’t content with the examination of a potential laboratory leak. “I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough,” he wrote. “This requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.”

Sciencemag: At a briefing today on the report, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized that further studies are needed to understand the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and criticized the access given to its international team on their fact-finding mission to China. Tedros said he expected “future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing. … Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.”

Al Jazeera: Separately on Tuesday, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also demanded further research to reach “more robust conclusions”.

NY Times: Some members of the expert team have raised concerns about China’s refusal to share raw data about early Covid-19 cases. In an unusual move, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general, acknowledged those concerns while speaking about the report on Tuesday. He said he hoped future studies would include “more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

CNN: "As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement Tuesday. "This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end. We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do."

Sciencenews: Some explanations may be more probable than others, but for now all possibilities remain on the table, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

My suggestion are:

1. Include a mention of Tedros comments in the "Reaction" subsection. It is currently in the "Findings" subsection.
2. Alternatively, leave Tedros comments in the "Findings subsection, with the clarification used in Maxmen (March, 2021): "who was not directly involved with the investigation"
3. Include a direct mention of how Tedros addressed the potential of a laboratory leak. I propose either: i) Citing Maxmen (March, 2021): "he looks forward to future studies of the coronavirus’s animal origins — but that he wasn’t content with the examination of a potential laboratory leak."; or ii) replace the "unturned stones" text we have with a cite from Sciencenews': "Some explanations may be more probable than others, but for now all possibilities remain on the table, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.". This addition would improve NPOV, I think.
4. Include a more precise quote of Tedros mention of "further research". In my opinion, he says they are "required". The current text in wikipedia omit that precise qualification (the WP article currently only says "as part of future investigations" and "being ready to deploy more teams").

Reception from scientists at the time of release in March 2021

This is the immediate reaction from scientists, which excludes the open letters that came later, to be clear.

Maxmen (March, 2021): Eddie Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, says that the report does a good job of laying out what’s known about the early days of the pandemic... The WHO report also concludes that it’s highly unlikely that the coronavirus escaped from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology... Nevertheless, the findings are likely to be contested by some. A small group of scientists have sent letters to the media saying that they wouldn’t trust the outcome of the investigation because it was closely overseen by China’s government.

Sciencemag: Where SARS-CoV-2 came from before it began its 15-month rampage around the globe is the biggest pandemic puzzle of all. But an eagerly awaited report on the question released today may satisfy few readers, especially given unrealistic expectations about how quickly the source of the coronavirus could be pinpointed... That’s long been the favored hypothesis of many virologists, but the team convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) reports little fresh evidence to support it, and members acknowledge several other scenarios, including an accidental release from a lab, remain possible. The report does, however, lay out plenty of next steps. “We still don’t know where the virus came from, but there’s a clear plan to continue investigating,” says virologist Angela Rasmussen of Georgetown University, who was not on the WHO team... The report’s most definitive conclusion is also its most controversial: that it is “extremely unlikely” SARS-CoV-2 leaked out of a Chinese laboratory that was already studying coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)... More investigations into the earliest days of the pandemic are also needed, says Thea Kølsen Fischer, a virologist at the University of Copenhagen and part of the international team. It’s still unclear when people started to get sick... From the beginning, scientists on and outside the WHO team have pushed back against the idea that a short mission would quickly pinpoint the pandemic’s origins. The politically charged environment surrounding the WHO probe hasn’t helped matters, Rasmussen notes... The report is just a first step, Fischer adds. “It feels like I’m standing in front of this wall and I’m now holding this piece of string in my hands, but I don’t know how long that string is on the other side of the wall. Maybe it’s short, and this will be done in months or maybe it’s long and this will take years.”

Al Jazeera: The inability of the WHO mission to conclude yet where or how the virus began spreading in people means that tensions will continue over how the pandemic started – and whether China has helped efforts to find out or, as the US has alleged, hindered them.

PBS: Nick Schifrin[China policy adviser in the State Department during the Trump administration, and is now a fellow at the Hoover and Hudson institutes.]: And do you believe today's WHO report answers some of the questions that you asked? Miles Yu: No. The international organization has lost its credibility by believing one government narrative.. Also the title lets us infer that PBS editorialized the reception of the WHO report as: "but critics claim the study was biased".

Sydney Morning Herald: Unsatisfyingly, their joint report, snappily titled Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part, does not reach any definitive conclusions. It does not identify Patient One. It does not specify the origin of the virus that has so far killed 2.865 million people and shattered economies and communities around the globe... So does the report tell us anything at all? The first person to publish the genome of the virus, Professor Eddie Holmes of Sydney University, gave me his expert interpretation of the 120-page report and its 196 pages of annexures. It was naive to expect definitive answers from a three-week visit to China, he said, but the report does point the way ahead.

National Geographic: Although the WHO report may not have shed much light on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, Robertson says this is just the beginning of what can sometimes be a long process.

NY Times: Some critics have suggested that the team seemed to take the Chinese official position at face value and did not adequately investigate lab officials’ assertions... Raina MacIntyre, who heads the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said the report seemed to dismiss the idea of a lab leak “without strong evidence.”

Sciencenews: Overall, the report offers few clear-cut conclusions regarding the start of the pandemic. Instead, it provides context for the possibilities and helps home in on the studies researchers should tackle next.

My suggestions are:

1. Include a direct mention of the quality of evidence of the conclusions. Al Jazeera said it was "unable to be conclusive". Sciencemag says the report "brings little fresh evidence to support [a conclusion]". Also Sciencemag says "The report’s most definitive conclusion is also its most controversial: that it is “extremely unlikely” SARS-CoV-2 leaked out of a Chinese laboratory that was already studying coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)". PBS says "critics claim the study was biased" and by critics they interviewed Miles Yu. SMH says "[The report] does not reach any definitive conclusions. It does not identify Patient One.". Nat Geo says "the report may not have shed much light on the origins of SARS-CoV-2". NY Times says that critics claim the study failed to audit the Chinese official position at some parts of the report, and by critics they interviewed Raina MacIntyre. Sciencenews says "the report offers few clear-cut conclusions regarding the start of the pandemic"
2. A common counter to the previous criticism is that it was irrealistic to expect quick and huge results from the WHO report
3. Also common in most sources is to praise how the report details the pathways that can shed light on the origin if explored later
4. The current phrasing is equivocal: "A small number of researchers said that they would not trust the report's conclusions because it was overseen by the Chinese government, but other scientists found the report convincing, and said there was no evidence of a laboratory origin for the virus" because it is taken out of context. It is taken from Maxmen (March, 2021) to refer to the open letters from scientists, but we cite it as if it was an independent and separate reaction from scientists at the time of the release of the report. It is clear, I think, that the we can not say that scientists praised too much the quality of evidence of the conclusions of the report, thus, the "other scientists found the report convincing" has to go, in my opinion.Forich (talk) 06:18, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Recent review article

For consideration: Mitra, Anirban (10 July 2021). "Investigations into the origin of SARS-CoV-2: an update" (PDF). Current Science. 121 (1): 77–84. doi:10.18520/CS/V121/I1/77-84. ISSN 0011-3891. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Animalparty: Just to be thorough, given that credentials from some countries can be though to verify. Briefly:

1. Published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, which looks to me like a legitimate organisation (see reference on indian gov website).
2. Journal is not in MEDLINE, although it previously (half a century-ago, nearly) was (see NCBI).
3. Seems like he does have relevant expertise (would be in a prime spot to comment about any claims of genetic engineering) - the university affiliations/everything look legitimate (see IGE website); which is listed, as indicated, as an affiliated institution of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences (here, search for "genetic", the addresses match)

Back to the journal. It has a low impact-factor (just under one); but a decent h-index (above 100, indicating it occasionally produces significant/well-cited papers) (Scimago). This is comparable, in fact sometimes even better, to other journals published by national institutes from India (cf. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy).

So, basically, it's a paper by an Indian scholar published in an average Indian journal. Nothing that disqualifies it (unless we're intent on furthering WP:BIAS issues), and it does not appear on Beall's list or on the updated site (there's a potential attempted clone, but it's clearly not this one). That makes it useable for our purposes, although it's not a top of the field journal (seems somewhat comparable to the Italian journal Forich was objecting to) so likely shouldn't be used for anything exceptional. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:25, 31 July 2021 (UTC)