MIT Technology Review published an article on WIV on Feb 9, 2022 (www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/09/1044985/shi-zhengli-covid-lab-leak-wuhan/). Together with columns by Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times, it stands as the best journalism on COVID-19 origin by the Western media. MIT Technology Review is no brand-name, and Michael Hiltzik can be dismissed as being a columnist and expressing his opinions. Hence this underscores indirectly but also abundantly the lopsided COVID-19 debate.
The new, lengthy article contains a lot of new information about WIV. For example, beyond the “usual suspect” Shi Zhengli, it describes for the first time in the West two important junior researchers at Shi’s lab who had cultured bat CoVs and sequenced SARS-CoV-2. The article reflects how dismal Nathan Robison’s interview of Alina Chan was (Jan 22, 2022 blog), which is far from the worst. Along the way the article summarily confirms many points my previous blogs had made based on public records and professional knowledge (e.g., Dec 7, 2021 and Jan 22, 2022 blogs). Some of the confirmations, in a matter-of-fact manner almost for the first time, are:
1. There aren’t many CoVs in WIV’s collections. Estimated 2K at most, and perhaps 200 relevant to humans. A drop in the bucket compared to Nature CoVs.
2. Almost all known CoVs at WIV exist as sequences, or computer files, only, never live viruses. Every lab in the world knows how hard it is to isolate CoV from bat samples. Only 3 viruses have been isolated, all SARS related, by one of the researchers mentioned in the article.
3. It is a common practice to grow bat CoVs at BSL-2 facilities in the world.
4. Thus it is a red herring for the lab origin crowd to cry lab safety on the BSL-2 or BSL-4 issue. There was never any problem with WIV biosafety. The 2020 WP article about DOS cable on BSL-4 at WIV was misleading at best because it seriously lacked contexts and had no specifics on any accidents.
5. Shi’s lab has three dozen people, big but not so big (plenty of labs around the world have many more people). Not exactly an enterprise of gigantic work to create SARS-CoV-2.
6. Furthermore, GOF was not technically possible with what WIV had. Even with RaTG13, lab origin crowd’s favorite. Scientists quoted by the article all agree on that.
7. The S protein is not the sole determinant of disease by CoVs. So the much-hyped furin site in S, lab origin crowd’s the other favorite, is even less telling, because for WIV to make SARS-CoV-2, they now not only had to mutate S, but also other parts of the CoVs, which to this day still have unknown significance to disease. Related to 6, and in the words of Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, it would have been “a feat of unprecedented genetic engineering.”
8. Many rural people have Ab against SARS-related CoVs, indicating long-time and prior exposures. Contrast to common beliefs but natural for scientists to understand, it is never a given that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan.
9. Peter Daszak really was not that powerful in the WHO team the lab origin gangs make him out to be.
10. The WIV debate persists simply because the lab origin crowd don’t believe what Shi/WIV/China says. There is no way to satisfy them, due to WCEV (May 1, 2020 blog). They have no evidence, and they ask questions not because they want scientific answers. These people and their actions are the epitome of neo-racism.
But for anyone with an open mind, you can look at public records and scientific literature, prior to 2020 and since, to determine whether there is any indication Shi/WIV was doing anything they said they were not doing, which might lead to SARS-CoV-2, or anything Shi/WIV said that was not unreasonable but was contradicted by any evidence. Answer: Nil. Then compare Shi/WIV’s record with lab origin crowd’s. The contrast is day and light. It is a big wonder that the lab origin theory still has a speckle of credibility, if not for the fact that WCEV infected more people than SARS-CoV-2 in the West, and human bodies don’t clear WCEV automatically.
Nonetheless, there are a few questions or problems with the article. MIT Technology Review is not a household name, and the article’s timing is badly off. There have been bits and pieces from MIT Technology Review before, but the current, complete article publishes mostly months- or even years-old information. Why didn’t it come out, say 6 months ago, when it could have made a bigger impact and Michael Hiltzik was the only one at MSM writing good columns?
The worst part is the article also blames Chinese misinformation and not being transparent, a preemptive cover against pro-China bias in the West (in fairness the article includes responses from Chinese scientists). For one, it is curious that transparency is treated implicitly as an all-or-none phenomenon. If so, is the US transparent? Does the US government tell or show you everything, or do you find everything from the US government truthful and immediately throughout the pandemic (or other events)? If not, is the US transparent or not? Regarding China, what is not transparent? If there is something found wrong later, is it possible that it was due to confusion about dealing with a brand new virus and disease and still learning, or no one having all the information in real-time? Even Einstein made scientific mistakes, but being wrong doesn’t mean hiding something.
The article cites the 2003 SARS as an example, but the popular storyline spread by the media is off. The article mentions a doctor at Beijing revealing more patients in Beijing than officially admitted at the time, but misses the nuance that it was unclear at what level the information was withheld. And haven’t we seen plenty of such examples in the US during COVID-19? More importantly, SARS started in Guangdong months earlier, and by the time Beijing had it, China and the whole world already knew about the disease.
About Chinese misinformation, the West likes to accuse Chinese foreign ministry of blaming the US for making COVID-19. This article is careful in only saying that China “insinuated” the possibility, which is the lightest accusation by any Western media outlet. But the article never tells you countless US officials from Trump down have claimed WIV/China made COVID-19 earlier, while no Chinese government officials have made the other assertion. And the foreign ministry spokespeople merely argued in rhetorical tweets and in response to Western journalists: you say China doesn’t have transparency or allow access, but China has already allowed visits to WIV, so when will the US allow visits to so-and-so? Before 2020 WIV was (still is) a research and education institute that publishes in scientific journals and cooperates internationally. Foreign scholars come and go all the time. Circling back to transparency, does the so-and-so facility in the US operate the same way, and how much do we know about what it does? Is it fair to apply different standards? If the MIT Technology Review article reminds its audience of the US side, it would have been more objective, balanced, and better.
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