Making Sense - Sam Harris - #311 — Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if

00:00:12.120 you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing

00:00:16.260 the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

00:00:20.760 podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to

00:00:26.360 add to your favorite podcatcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads on the

00:00:31.520 podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you

00:00:36.300 enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Well, there's a lot happening with AI

00:00:48.420 these days. The chatbot over at Bing, powered by OpenAI's program called Sydney, apparently,

00:00:58.540 seems to have gone a little crazy. Also, a human just beat a high-level computer at Go,

00:01:07.120 which was previously considered impossible. So it would appear that our robot overlords are looking

00:01:13.160 a little sketchy. I think I'll do another AI-focused podcast pretty soon. Seems like there's a lot to

00:01:20.080 talk about. But today we are talking about the origins of the COVID pandemic. And for that conversation,

00:01:27.400 I have Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. Matt is a writer. His books have been translated into 31 languages

00:01:34.900 and won many awards. They include The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, and The Evolution of

00:01:44.120 Everything. And his new book with Alina Chan is Viral, The Search for the Origin of COVID-19.

00:01:53.300 Matt also sat in the House of Lords between 2013 and 2021 and served on the Science and Technology

00:02:00.260 Select Committee there and the Artificial Intelligence Select Committee. He was also the

00:02:06.480 founding chairman of the International Center for Life in Newcastle. And he created the Mind and Matter

00:02:12.460 column for the Wall Street Journal in 2010 and was a columnist there from 2013 to 2018. He is a fellow

00:02:21.020 of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a foreign honorary member of

00:02:26.880 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Alina Chan is a scientific advisor and viral vector engineer

00:02:33.220 at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard. She is a recent Broad Ignite Fellow and Human Frontier Science

00:02:40.700 Program Fellow with a background in medical genetics, synthetic biology, and genetic engineering.

00:02:47.720 During the pandemic, Dr. Chan investigated the problems relevant to finding the origin of the SARS-CoV-2

00:02:52.680 virus. And in 2022, she joined the Pathogens Project Task Force, which was organized by the Bulletin of

00:02:59.820 Atomic Scientists. And the purpose of this project is to generate new thinking on high-risk pathogen research

00:03:05.980 and to help prevent future lab-based outbreaks. As I said, the topic today is the origins of COVID,

00:03:13.740 more precisely the SARS-CoV-2 virus. So we discussed the evidence of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:03:21.960 We talk about media and academic censorship of this topic, the history of collaboration between

00:03:28.360 Western scientists and Chinese labs, the problems with so-called gain-of-function research,

00:03:34.460 the evidence for the zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2, such as it is, the initial complacency and denialism of

00:03:42.560 the Chinese, the biosafety levels at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the molecular evidence of a lab leak,

00:03:50.440 the practical constraints on synthesizing viruses, the lack of international cooperation,

00:03:57.080 conspiracy theories promulgated by the CCP, the EcoHealth Alliance, different kinds of gain-of-function

00:04:04.220 research, virus hunting, risk and reward in the search for knowledge, Anthony Fauci, and other topics.

00:04:12.960 Anyway, I found it a fascinating and

00:04:17.540 also

00:04:19.020 fairly

00:04:20.080 confounding

00:04:21.180 conversation.

00:04:22.880 This is one of those topics where you just can't believe

00:04:25.840 we are in the situation that we're in,

00:04:28.700 given bad incentives and

00:04:30.300 basic human stupidity.

00:04:33.760 Anyway, Matt and Alina were great guys to the topic,

00:04:35.860 so I hope you find this useful.

00:04:38.600 And now I bring you Matt Ridley and Alina Chan.

00:04:47.500 I am here with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan.

00:04:50.320 Matt, Alina, thanks for joining me.

00:04:52.140 Great to be with you.

00:04:53.120 Same.

00:04:53.740 So we're going to talk about your book that,

00:04:57.940 when did it first come out?

00:04:59.400 It's now out in paperback.

00:05:00.800 When did you first publish this?

00:05:02.440 I should give the title.

00:05:03.980 It's Viral, The Search for the Origin of COVID-19.

00:05:07.880 When was the book first published?

00:05:09.440 It came out in the fall of 2021,

00:05:12.140 and paperback, which was updated in the spring of 2022.

00:05:17.460 Is that right, Alina, or have I got the name, the years right?

00:05:19.960 Yeah, the paperback came on in June last year.

00:05:23.400 Okay.

00:05:24.180 So obviously we will incorporate any up-to-the-minute

00:05:27.720 findings or thoughts or misgivings or retractions

00:05:31.880 or epiphanies that you might have.

00:05:34.900 And this is a topic that has always been interesting and consequential.

00:05:41.520 I think, let me just put my prior cards on the table.

00:05:45.220 I always felt that speculation about the origins of COVID

00:05:50.640 was more or less irrelevant

00:05:53.900 relevant and perhaps counterproductive at the very beginning.

00:05:58.440 Once we knew we had a pandemic on our hands

00:06:01.520 and we knew we had sequenced the genome of the virus,

00:06:05.160 it seemed to me that the first order of business

00:06:07.580 for a considerable period of time

00:06:09.880 was to simply design vaccines against that virus,

00:06:13.520 which we did very quickly,

00:06:14.900 and to try to secure as much cooperation as we could

00:06:19.260 in all of our collective efforts

00:06:21.340 to not have the pandemic be as bad as it might be.

00:06:26.700 But obviously the pushback against speculation

00:06:31.200 about this topic that emerged fairly quickly

00:06:34.760 always seemed crazy and disingenuous.

00:06:38.220 It was never racist to worry that this had leaked out of a lab.

00:06:42.600 And it's obviously quite consequential

00:06:45.340 to get to something like a ground truth consensus

00:06:48.580 about the origins of this pandemic ultimately

00:06:51.160 because we need to figure out

00:06:53.380 how not to do this sort of thing again

00:06:55.060 if we are in any way culpable

00:06:57.100 for the emergence of this virus.

00:07:00.180 So that's where I've always been.

00:07:02.760 It's not that I have not been interested.

00:07:05.120 It's just something like this moment

00:07:08.940 where I feel like, all right,

00:07:10.060 this is a very important project to drill down on this.

00:07:14.660 Obviously you both were much more interested earlier

00:07:19.540 because you've written a book on this topic,

00:07:20.940 but I'm wondering if my initial disinclination

00:07:25.320 to drill down on the origin story

00:07:28.860 seems questionable to you.

00:07:32.040 I just, it seemed politically inflammatory initially,

00:07:35.340 and it also seemed like when the first job

00:07:38.860 is to design vaccines,

00:07:40.100 it didn't seem quite relevant to know the origin.

00:07:43.860 Is there something that I was missing there?

00:07:46.520 So Sam, I actually started on the same foot as you.

00:07:49.340 So I was more interested in how the virus

00:07:51.040 was causing disease in people

00:07:52.580 before I read that it was not mutating much.

00:07:56.560 And that's when the alarm went off

00:07:58.200 that this might have come from a lab to me.

00:08:00.280 So I was actually more interested

00:08:02.000 in finding a way to treat the disease

00:08:04.420 rather than to find out where it came from.

00:08:07.200 But to the question of which is more important,

00:08:09.280 I think that both have to be investigated in parallel

00:08:12.240 because if you wait too long,

00:08:13.800 it will become impossible

00:08:15.000 to find the origin of the outbreak.

00:08:17.560 Right. Yeah.

00:08:18.740 Honestly, I had not thought about that part of it,

00:08:21.980 that you sort of lose your connection to the facts

00:08:24.880 if you're not really looking as much as you can look,

00:08:28.360 as early as you can look.

00:08:29.560 Before we jump in,

00:08:31.400 and this really is a fascinating topic,

00:08:33.980 which sheds a lot of light

00:08:35.160 on a fair amount of societal dysfunction.

00:08:38.000 We're going to talk about the origins of COVID,

00:08:39.680 but in the background and perhaps explicitly,

00:08:42.340 we're also talking about the political corruption of science

00:08:46.620 and a fundamental lack of transparency

00:08:49.340 on the part of public health officials

00:08:51.500 and attendant failures of cooperation.

00:08:54.740 Before we jump in,

00:08:55.580 perhaps both of you can summarize

00:08:57.020 your relevant backgrounds here.

00:08:59.800 Let's start with you, Matt.

00:09:01.140 You and I obviously are quite familiar with one another,

00:09:03.780 though we have not yet met scandalously.

00:09:06.260 I've read several of your books,

00:09:08.500 and I will have introduced you both properly

00:09:10.700 at the beginning here in the intro,

00:09:12.820 but give me your potted bio, Matt.

00:09:16.000 Will do.

00:09:16.700 Yeah, I'm a longtime fan of Sam Harris.

00:09:19.080 That's one thing you can say about me.

00:09:20.680 But my bio is that I'm an evolutionary biologist by training.

00:09:26.080 I did a defil at Oxford in the behavior of birds

00:09:29.640 a very long time ago.

00:09:30.900 I then became a journalist.

00:09:32.500 I then became a book writer, an author,

00:09:35.500 non-fiction author,

00:09:37.500 and various other things I did.

00:09:39.320 Ended up in the UK Parliament for nine years,

00:09:42.460 in the House of Lords,

00:09:43.240 not in the House of Commons.

00:09:44.800 And the common theme of my career

00:09:49.840 is a fascination with science

00:09:52.200 and with evolutionary biology in particular.

00:09:55.440 So actually coming to this topic,

00:09:57.760 I was especially interested in the story of the bats

00:10:02.080 right from the start,

00:10:03.500 or at least whatever other species

00:10:05.000 it was going to turn out to be.

00:10:06.620 But it very quickly became clear

00:10:08.020 that all these SARS-like viruses

00:10:10.060 are basically found in one genus of bats,

00:10:12.300 the horseshoe bats.

00:10:13.080 And it was writing about that

00:10:14.780 that got me into this topic.

00:10:18.460 I very quickly learned

00:10:19.840 that I could rule out a lab leak

00:10:21.600 as plausible on the basis of arguments

00:10:24.840 that were being put in

00:10:26.020 what seemed to be authoritative scientific papers.

00:10:29.180 I then later came to question that

00:10:31.120 and thought that those papers were premature.

00:10:33.620 And that's how I got more and more intrigued.

00:10:36.220 And it was Alina's work, really,

00:10:38.380 that tipped me over the edge.

00:10:40.700 Alina?

00:10:41.260 So I've been working in labs for about 14 years.

00:10:45.620 I have a background in biochemistry,

00:10:47.800 medical genetics, genetic engineering,

00:10:50.020 and now gene therapy.

00:10:51.620 So I am a scientist

00:10:53.220 at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

00:10:56.520 And I'd say that the common theme

00:10:58.020 in my research, in my scientific life,

00:11:01.080 is thinking about how to re-engineer human cells

00:11:05.300 for therapeutic purposes.

00:11:07.040 And now thinking about how viruses interact

00:11:10.320 with their host, with human cells.

00:11:12.900 Wonderful.

00:11:13.640 Well, so you are just the people

00:11:14.640 I want to talk to on this topic.

00:11:16.540 And as chance would have it,

00:11:18.020 you've written a book on it.

00:11:19.200 So how did you come to collaborate

00:11:21.200 on the book together

00:11:23.040 and perhaps just give us its basic thesis?

00:11:27.340 What are you alleging happened

00:11:29.680 or may have happened?

00:11:30.840 And maybe before we...

00:11:32.840 I mean, we're going to track through this,

00:11:34.580 you know, the various arguments

00:11:36.980 for and against the thesis.

00:11:38.860 But you might just say

00:11:40.440 how your thinking may have evolved

00:11:43.020 in the meantime.

00:11:44.140 I mean, have you become more convinced

00:11:46.260 or less convinced of any particular claim?

00:11:49.180 Yeah.

00:11:49.240 Shall I kick off on that?

00:11:50.320 Because I was commissioned

00:11:52.240 by the Wall Street Journal

00:11:52.980 to write an article called

00:11:54.080 The Bats Behind the Pandemic

00:11:55.500 in, I think it was April or May of 2020.

00:12:00.300 And I had by then become intrigued

00:12:03.720 by this story that this virus

00:12:05.360 seems to have come from bats

00:12:06.620 and that they had already found

00:12:09.220 a very similar relative.

00:12:10.900 But I didn't know where or when.

00:12:13.200 And the more I dug into the topic,

00:12:16.480 the more I began to question

00:12:18.160 the received wisdom at the time,

00:12:20.560 which I had been conveying to other people,

00:12:23.200 that you could rule out a lab origin.

00:12:25.500 And then I came across a paper

00:12:28.240 by Alina and two of her colleagues,

00:12:30.180 which said that this virus

00:12:31.800 had experienced no burst

00:12:34.360 of rapid evolutionary change

00:12:36.140 on first entering the human species in 2019,

00:12:38.760 which is surprising

00:12:40.460 because the original SARS had shown that

00:12:43.340 and most viruses do that.

00:12:44.560 They have to evolve pretty fast

00:12:46.200 to suit the new host.

00:12:47.820 And she also tipped me off

00:12:49.160 that the Chinese had now ruled out

00:12:51.880 that it began in the market.

00:12:54.180 George Gao, the head of the Centers

00:12:55.660 for Disease Control in Beijing,

00:12:57.120 had announced that he thought

00:12:57.980 the market was a super spreader event,

00:13:00.480 not a origin event.

00:13:03.100 And that's when I started getting intrigued.

00:13:06.480 And Alina was the first scientist

00:13:07.560 I talked to who said,

00:13:08.540 look, it's an open question.

00:13:10.000 We don't know if it came out of a lab.

00:13:11.500 We don't know if it came out of a market.

00:13:13.260 I got more and more interested in it.

00:13:15.120 I followed her work and other work

00:13:17.180 more and more closely,

00:13:18.520 dug as deeply as I could.

00:13:19.760 And eventually I said to her,

00:13:21.420 could we collaborate on a book?

00:13:23.360 Because although I know quite a lot

00:13:24.460 about genomics,

00:13:25.220 I've written several books on the topic.

00:13:27.180 I'm basically a writer, not a scientist.

00:13:30.060 And I would need to collaborate

00:13:32.140 with somebody who understood the science.

00:13:34.460 We both, I think, thought,

00:13:36.660 and Alina can confirm this,

00:13:38.440 at the start,

00:13:39.900 that it could go either way.

00:13:42.120 That we would probably find out

00:13:43.940 while we were writing the book

00:13:45.420 what the answer was.

00:13:47.040 We were wrong about that, by the way.

00:13:48.420 We still don't know three years later.

00:13:50.380 But we would probably find out

00:13:51.980 that it was either something to do

00:13:53.840 with that seafood market

00:13:55.340 or something to do with that laboratory in Wuhan.

00:13:58.420 And so we devoted roughly equal quantities

00:14:01.240 of text in the book to each argument.

00:14:04.960 But I think by the end,

00:14:05.940 we were both leaning towards the lab.

00:14:08.460 And then a couple of other things happened

00:14:10.760 just as we were about to publish

00:14:12.700 a document dropped,

00:14:14.820 which we can describe later,

00:14:16.680 which I think tipped us both

00:14:18.360 into the view that the lab

00:14:20.020 was now more likely than the market.

00:14:22.940 What has been your experience

00:14:24.260 touching this topic,

00:14:26.900 you know, trying to publish on it

00:14:28.460 and publishing, in fact,

00:14:31.180 at a certain point?

00:14:32.880 And has there been a fraught adventure

00:14:36.240 in publishing?

00:14:37.120 And I know you've testified,

00:14:38.820 both testified before the UK Parliament.

00:14:41.460 Just what manner of courting controversy

00:14:44.860 has this been?

00:14:46.520 And how has that political environment

00:14:49.660 around this evolved over the last few years?

00:14:53.520 Yeah, well, we've met all sorts of barriers.

00:14:56.400 You know, this was described

00:14:58.540 as a conspiracy theory

00:14:59.800 that it could have come out of the lab

00:15:01.100 very early on.

00:15:02.220 And it was, as a result,

00:15:03.660 banned from discussion altogether

00:15:05.580 on places like Facebook.

00:15:07.800 Luckily, on Twitter, it wasn't.

00:15:09.640 You could still speculate

00:15:11.120 and share information on Twitter.

00:15:14.620 So in the social media space,

00:15:16.220 it wasn't easy.

00:15:17.600 That changed a bit in 2021.

00:15:19.440 The world got a bit more open-minded.

00:15:21.380 In terms of the media,

00:15:24.020 we found certain newspapers

00:15:26.760 and broadcast outlets

00:15:28.680 were very interested

00:15:29.560 in talking about this topic

00:15:30.640 and thought it was an interesting one.

00:15:32.160 Others wouldn't go near it.

00:15:33.340 CNN and the BBC

00:15:34.320 just wouldn't talk about our book at all,

00:15:37.100 for example.

00:15:37.680 And is that still the case?

00:15:39.640 Yes, basically,

00:15:40.500 as far as I know, it is, I think.

00:15:41.940 I think you have been on CNN, Alina, once,

00:15:44.080 but only a long time ago.

00:15:46.380 And I've not been...

00:15:47.700 Well, there was one

00:15:48.320 very, very obscure BBC program

00:15:50.100 had us on

00:15:50.520 before they realized

00:15:51.220 how unfashionable we were.

00:15:54.600 I don't think I've been on CNN.

00:15:56.380 I think they canceled last minute also.

00:15:59.120 And I think we've seen that a lot.

00:16:01.380 A lot of these more popular news media

00:16:04.360 would reach out

00:16:05.160 saying they want to interview us on the book.

00:16:06.840 And then a few days right before,

00:16:09.120 they would say,

00:16:09.700 oh, we can't touch this topic.

00:16:11.660 Our scientific editor is against it,

00:16:13.380 that kind of thing.

00:16:14.300 So there has been, I think,

00:16:16.300 some self-censorship

00:16:17.500 on the part of news reporters

00:16:19.640 on this topic.

00:16:21.200 Yeah.

00:16:21.420 And also, it's worth mentioning

00:16:22.940 that we've had a lot of encouragement

00:16:25.240 from scientists privately.

00:16:27.260 An awful lot of people are saying to us,

00:16:29.440 keep going, you're on the right track.

00:16:31.120 But in public,

00:16:32.320 very few of them are prepared

00:16:33.400 to put their heads above the parapet.

00:16:34.840 And when I pressed, for example,

00:16:37.400 the Royal Society in London

00:16:38.920 and also the Academy of Medical Sciences

00:16:40.840 to hold a debate

00:16:42.560 on the origin of a pandemic

00:16:44.900 that's killing north of 10 million people,

00:16:47.300 I was told the topic is too controversial.

00:16:50.620 And we've found something similar in the US

00:16:53.520 that, you know,

00:16:54.620 the question of sort of opening it up

00:16:57.100 to a proper conversation

00:16:58.640 is just not acceptable

00:17:01.900 within conventional science.

00:17:04.520 And this is odd

00:17:05.860 because the public

00:17:07.620 generally thinks it came from a lab.

00:17:09.960 If you look at opinion polling

00:17:11.320 and based on anecdotal conversations

00:17:13.820 I have with people,

00:17:15.200 an awful lot of people think,

00:17:16.240 yeah, of course it came out of that lab.

00:17:18.180 Whereas the scientific establishment

00:17:20.000 likes to say

00:17:21.040 that the vast majority of scientists

00:17:22.640 think it didn't come out of a lab.

00:17:24.780 Now, if that's true,

00:17:25.760 if they think that

00:17:26.900 and they know the public are,

00:17:28.740 as it were, wrong on this topic,

00:17:30.580 then they ought to be

00:17:31.180 all the more willing

00:17:32.060 to come out and debate it

00:17:33.540 and knock down the theory

00:17:35.500 that it came out of a lab.

00:17:36.840 And for me, it's very odd

00:17:38.080 that we can't have,

00:17:39.300 we haven't been able

00:17:40.360 to have a very open,

00:17:41.840 wide-ranging conversation

00:17:42.960 in much of the media

00:17:44.600 about this

00:17:45.820 over the last two or three years.

00:17:47.500 Well, one of the things

00:17:48.280 we've seen as well

00:17:49.480 over the last two years

00:17:50.680 is that a lot of emails

00:17:51.580 have been obtained

00:17:52.560 through the Freedom of Information Act

00:17:54.300 showing that virologists

00:17:56.120 who publicly said,

00:17:57.920 of course it came from

00:17:58.940 an animal in that market,

00:18:00.840 privately in their emails

00:18:01.920 they were worrying

00:18:02.680 whether this virus

00:18:03.720 had been engineered

00:18:04.360 in the Wuhan lab.

00:18:05.980 Okay, well, I want us to explore

00:18:07.700 the nature of the controversy

00:18:09.220 because it is surprising to me

00:18:11.540 that it is this controversial

00:18:13.120 to speculate about

00:18:14.840 the origins of the virus

00:18:16.380 and to worry

00:18:17.780 that it could have leaked

00:18:19.340 out of a lab.

00:18:20.200 I think, I mean,

00:18:20.920 just to frame that surprise

00:18:23.020 more fully,

00:18:24.260 it's, first of all,

00:18:24.980 there's been a rich history

00:18:26.540 of security breaches

00:18:27.900 at labs

00:18:28.740 and leaks

00:18:30.160 of dangerous pathogens

00:18:31.800 even from labs

00:18:33.040 with, you know,

00:18:33.820 higher security

00:18:35.200 than the Wuhan Institute

00:18:36.540 of Virology has.

00:18:38.040 So we know

00:18:39.160 we're bad at this

00:18:40.160 containing dangerous viruses

00:18:42.380 and this is just,

00:18:44.860 you know,

00:18:45.160 a continuous source

00:18:46.820 of concern

00:18:47.560 and so we should want

00:18:49.060 to talk about evidence

00:18:50.440 of yet another leak.

00:18:52.000 Also, the Chinese

00:18:54.220 have not been

00:18:55.980 especially cooperative

00:18:57.400 and their political regime

00:19:00.280 is not so widely respected

00:19:02.680 at the moment.

00:19:03.880 Maybe let's just touch

00:19:05.260 the general question now.

00:19:07.680 Why would people

00:19:09.440 in the Western press

00:19:11.160 and the scientific community

00:19:12.600 in particular

00:19:13.560 be so coddling

00:19:15.320 of Chinese political sensitivities

00:19:18.860 on this topic?

00:19:20.040 I mean, I get why the Chinese

00:19:21.420 don't want to admit

00:19:22.460 or don't want to understand

00:19:24.540 that they,

00:19:26.560 through negligence,

00:19:27.980 have birthed a global pandemic

00:19:31.080 if in fact they have

00:19:32.500 and we, you know,

00:19:33.680 we could argue

00:19:34.540 it's negligence either way,

00:19:35.760 whether it's a wet market

00:19:36.620 or a lab leak,

00:19:37.840 but why would the Western press

00:19:40.140 and the Western scientific community

00:19:41.480 be so eager

00:19:43.240 to protect their self-concept

00:19:46.900 on this point?

00:19:47.740 Alina, do you want to go first

00:19:49.300 on that?

00:19:49.900 And I'll chip in.

00:19:51.860 So, I'll say first

00:19:53.300 that when I first started

00:19:55.420 wondering about

00:19:56.520 where this pandemic

00:19:57.360 had come from,

00:19:58.520 I had no idea

00:19:59.440 about this whole history

00:20:01.360 of collaboration

00:20:02.480 between not just the US,

00:20:04.600 but many other countries

00:20:05.940 across Asia and Europe

00:20:07.640 with labs in China

00:20:09.200 to do quite risky virus work

00:20:11.580 that might have led

00:20:12.440 to this pandemic.

00:20:12.980 So, here it's not just

00:20:14.720 whether Western scientists

00:20:16.660 are afraid of,

00:20:17.560 you know,

00:20:18.260 provoking China.

00:20:19.500 It's really a question of

00:20:20.560 are they also complicit

00:20:22.260 in the origin of COVID-19?

00:20:25.180 And over the last few years,

00:20:26.480 we've seen again and again

00:20:27.820 a lot of support

00:20:29.320 within the US

00:20:30.260 for exactly that type

00:20:32.200 of dangerous virus research

00:20:34.460 that's commonly known now

00:20:35.720 as gain-of-function research.

00:20:37.420 So, if the pandemic

00:20:38.960 did start from a lab

00:20:40.120 in Wuhan,

00:20:41.340 it is not just

00:20:42.020 a Chinese government issue.

00:20:44.020 It is actually

00:20:44.540 an issue that affects

00:20:45.820 multiple countries,

00:20:47.000 many countries

00:20:47.720 who have all supported

00:20:48.840 and endorsed

00:20:49.700 and engaged in this work.

00:20:51.520 And the US

00:20:52.180 is a big funder of it.

00:20:53.760 So, they would have

00:20:54.960 almost equal responsibility,

00:20:56.780 I think, in my eyes.

00:20:58.460 Okay.

00:20:58.680 So, it's not just China

00:20:59.860 and its political sensitivities.

00:21:02.920 If, in fact,

00:21:04.100 this is the result

00:21:04.940 of laboratory negligence,

00:21:07.440 there's a lot of blame

00:21:09.020 to spread around.

00:21:10.120 And we'll get there.

00:21:11.500 So, to start...

00:21:13.040 Yeah, I mean, sorry,

00:21:13.680 just to chip in there, Sam,

00:21:15.020 if I may,

00:21:15.920 just to amplify

00:21:16.760 one of the points.

00:21:18.080 It is a case that

00:21:19.180 Western virology

00:21:21.920 feels worried

00:21:24.120 that its entire

00:21:26.120 research program,

00:21:27.480 indeed the whole

00:21:28.180 of biotechnology,

00:21:29.740 might lose its funding,

00:21:31.140 might lose its social license

00:21:32.720 if a major accident

00:21:34.760 is revealed to have

00:21:36.140 happened as a result

00:21:37.280 of work in a laboratory.

00:21:40.120 And, you know,

00:21:41.540 I share that concern

00:21:43.600 in a sense.

00:21:44.500 I'm pro-biotech,

00:21:45.680 I'm pro-vaccine,

00:21:46.760 I'm pro-genetic engineering

00:21:48.880 of crops

00:21:50.080 and in medicine as well.

00:21:52.220 And it would be

00:21:53.160 a terrible pity

00:21:54.040 if, as a result of this,

00:21:56.060 the world said,

00:21:57.220 right,

00:21:57.400 we don't want to have

00:21:58.320 anything to do

00:21:58.720 with biotechnology

00:21:59.460 ever again.

00:22:00.760 It's a disaster.

00:22:02.120 But I think

00:22:03.020 truth is more important

00:22:04.320 than consequence.

00:22:05.880 And actually,

00:22:07.020 you know,

00:22:07.460 science would be

00:22:08.080 better off saying,

00:22:09.640 no, let's find out.

00:22:11.020 And if this did go wrong,

00:22:12.200 let's learn lessons

00:22:13.120 and make sure

00:22:13.680 we don't do it again.

00:22:15.120 Yeah, well,

00:22:15.480 I think one could well wonder

00:22:17.160 whether we want to have

00:22:17.840 anything to do

00:22:18.420 with gain-of-function

00:22:19.340 research,

00:22:20.240 which we'll talk about.

00:22:21.180 I mean,

00:22:21.300 this is something

00:22:22.140 that I've touched

00:22:23.080 on this podcast

00:22:24.180 once before.

00:22:25.600 My friend Rob Reed

00:22:26.520 did a special episode

00:22:28.520 on this research.

00:22:30.300 So that part

00:22:31.280 is especially worth

00:22:32.460 worrying about,

00:22:33.080 in my view,

00:22:33.480 but we'll get there.

00:22:35.000 So let's take it

00:22:35.940 from the top here.

00:22:36.660 What is the best argument

00:22:39.220 for the natural origins

00:22:42.480 of this virus?

00:22:43.840 I mean,

00:22:44.100 if memory serves

00:22:45.580 at the beginning,

00:22:47.240 and perhaps

00:22:47.740 this is still the case,

00:22:48.920 there was evidence

00:22:49.760 that it started

00:22:50.800 spreading

00:22:51.840 from the wet market,

00:22:53.560 whatever its,

00:22:54.220 you know,

00:22:54.660 initial origins

00:22:55.620 might have been.

00:22:57.140 You just referred to it

00:22:58.800 as possibly

00:22:59.340 a super spreader event.

00:23:00.640 So there was

00:23:01.400 a pattern of spread

00:23:02.980 with the wet market

00:23:04.600 as its epicenter,

00:23:07.020 and I forget

00:23:08.120 what it was.

00:23:08.880 It was something

00:23:09.140 like 27 first cases

00:23:11.100 that were detected there.

00:23:12.880 Try to give the case

00:23:13.900 for the zoonotic origins

00:23:16.500 of this pandemic.

00:23:18.260 Well, maybe I can chip in

00:23:19.760 on that one

00:23:20.580 and Alina can join in.

00:23:22.620 In the case of SARS,

00:23:24.040 in 2003,

00:23:25.560 there was a very clear link

00:23:26.980 to markets,

00:23:28.240 food handlers,

00:23:29.100 and that kind of thing.

00:23:30.600 So when this one cropped up,

00:23:32.300 and it's a very,

00:23:32.980 very similar virus,

00:23:34.140 it's very closely related

00:23:35.900 to SARS,

00:23:37.040 and it was first noticed

00:23:39.100 in and around

00:23:40.060 a food market,

00:23:41.720 it seemed

00:23:42.340 to be very much

00:23:43.800 the same story.

00:23:45.160 And that remains

00:23:47.360 a possibility.

00:23:48.720 There were mammals

00:23:49.880 on sale

00:23:50.980 in that market,

00:23:51.780 not nearly as many

00:23:52.640 as you would find

00:23:53.460 in southern China.

00:23:54.360 This is an area

00:23:55.020 of China

00:23:55.780 where you don't have

00:23:56.720 the same habit

00:23:58.620 of buying live animals

00:23:59.820 in markets

00:24:00.360 to the same degree.

00:24:01.900 But there were mammals

00:24:02.800 on sale

00:24:03.300 in that market,

00:24:04.680 and people did seem

00:24:06.300 to get infected

00:24:07.040 in that market.

00:24:08.320 And the geographical

00:24:09.360 proximity

00:24:10.160 of the outbreak

00:24:11.460 to a major

00:24:12.740 food market

00:24:14.040 does look

00:24:15.040 a bit like

00:24:15.820 SARS in 2003.

00:24:18.320 The problem was

00:24:19.280 they never found

00:24:20.080 an infected animal,

00:24:21.400 whereas they easily

00:24:22.080 found them

00:24:22.560 in the case of SARS.

00:24:24.060 And although they found

00:24:24.920 evidence of

00:24:26.120 the virus

00:24:27.100 in the market,

00:24:28.040 it was on things

00:24:28.980 like doorknobs,

00:24:30.040 countertops,

00:24:30.620 and in the sewage,

00:24:31.500 you know,

00:24:31.780 it was the human version

00:24:33.540 of the virus

00:24:34.040 being spread around

00:24:34.720 by people.

00:24:35.780 So, yeah,

00:24:36.940 it remains a possibility

00:24:38.560 that this was

00:24:39.720 very much like SARS.

00:24:40.960 It started in that market

00:24:42.220 and that somebody

00:24:44.200 was selling bamboo rats

00:24:46.560 which had been kept

00:24:47.460 in a cave

00:24:48.120 where bats

00:24:48.740 had been defecating

00:24:49.600 on them

00:24:50.000 or something like that.

00:24:51.640 And, yes,

00:24:52.840 you know,

00:24:53.520 we would expect

00:24:55.580 something like that

00:24:56.920 to happen

00:24:57.640 every now and then

00:24:59.620 because we know

00:25:00.840 that these viruses

00:25:01.600 are circulating

00:25:02.440 in wild bats

00:25:03.540 and people are coming

00:25:04.900 into contact

00:25:05.540 with them

00:25:06.020 in the wild.

00:25:07.140 And is it true

00:25:07.960 that there was

00:25:08.780 no possible

00:25:10.080 progenitor virus

00:25:11.760 found in any animal

00:25:12.980 in the market?

00:25:15.060 Yes, that's true.

00:25:16.000 Right, interesting.

00:25:16.600 So, I think

00:25:17.740 that there are

00:25:18.080 many lessons

00:25:18.580 to be learned

00:25:19.140 from how this

00:25:20.140 pandemic was traced

00:25:22.020 in terms of

00:25:22.600 how the local

00:25:23.360 investigators in Wuhan

00:25:24.460 tried to find

00:25:25.280 the source

00:25:26.200 of the virus.

00:25:27.460 So, what had happened

00:25:28.320 was there were

00:25:29.160 hospitals in Wuhan,

00:25:30.800 in the middle of Wuhan,

00:25:32.080 and they were seeing

00:25:32.960 cases of

00:25:33.920 unexplained pneumonia,

00:25:35.620 so they didn't know

00:25:36.360 what was infecting

00:25:37.080 these people.

00:25:38.200 And then,

00:25:39.160 doctors started

00:25:39.780 realizing that

00:25:40.940 they were seeing

00:25:41.580 some cases

00:25:42.440 from this market,

00:25:43.220 from the seafood market

00:25:44.040 that sold

00:25:44.840 some number

00:25:45.340 of live animals.

00:25:46.620 So, they called

00:25:47.500 in investigators

00:25:48.180 and then

00:25:49.280 those investigators

00:25:50.180 thought maybe

00:25:50.800 it's SARS-1

00:25:51.320 happening again.

00:25:52.500 And at that time

00:25:53.180 they were not,

00:25:53.980 you know,

00:25:54.620 so sure about

00:25:55.200 human-to-human

00:25:55.800 transmission yet.

00:25:56.960 So, what they did

00:25:57.580 was they looked

00:25:58.200 at the animals

00:25:59.880 in the market

00:26:00.900 or supply chain,

00:26:02.120 they went straight

00:26:02.720 to the market

00:26:03.200 and they wrote

00:26:04.200 all this down

00:26:04.800 in their notes

00:26:05.300 in their publications

00:26:06.500 in early 2020.

00:26:07.800 They said,

00:26:08.240 we are just going

00:26:08.740 to look at the market,

00:26:10.420 we're going to look

00:26:10.960 at the hospitals

00:26:11.700 near the market,

00:26:12.520 and we're going to look

00:26:13.300 in the neighborhood

00:26:13.980 of the market.

00:26:15.100 So, they completely

00:26:15.860 focused their search

00:26:16.740 on people

00:26:17.500 with either links

00:26:18.360 to the market

00:26:18.840 or if they had

00:26:19.420 no links to the market,

00:26:20.300 they had to live

00:26:20.820 near the market.

00:26:22.000 So, what this did

00:26:23.360 was it led to this

00:26:24.500 looking under

00:26:25.620 the, you know,

00:26:26.480 bright light

00:26:27.020 but not looking around

00:26:28.220 in the dark

00:26:28.740 kind of analogy

00:26:30.000 where they ended up

00:26:31.660 confining their search

00:26:33.280 prematurely

00:26:34.380 to one hypothesis

00:26:35.660 such that

00:26:36.720 if there had been

00:26:37.500 earlier cases

00:26:38.340 not linked to the market

00:26:39.880 or living far away

00:26:40.760 from the market,

00:26:41.360 they would have

00:26:41.720 been missed completely.

00:26:43.800 So, in this sense,

00:26:45.440 this led to this

00:26:46.260 great unknown

00:26:46.920 that persists to today.

00:26:48.400 Are there earlier cases

00:26:49.400 in the market?

00:26:50.120 Are there cases

00:26:50.660 in November,

00:26:51.340 for example,

00:26:51.840 that we don't know about?

00:26:53.400 And if the Chinese

00:26:54.880 government knows,

00:26:55.920 they have not told us,

00:26:56.940 they have not shared

00:26:57.420 that information with us.

00:26:59.180 Just to restate that

00:27:01.040 so people don't miss it.

00:27:02.020 So, what you're describing

00:27:03.040 is a kind of

00:27:03.840 selection bias.

00:27:05.260 If you look for

00:27:06.840 cases associated

00:27:07.960 with the market,

00:27:08.940 if you find anything,

00:27:09.780 you're only going to find

00:27:10.640 cases associated

00:27:11.400 with the market

00:27:11.940 and then if you populate

00:27:12.940 a map with those

00:27:13.840 red dots,

00:27:14.580 well, then you're going

00:27:15.140 to have created a map

00:27:16.320 that looks like

00:27:17.080 the market was

00:27:18.140 the epicenter

00:27:18.980 of everything you found

00:27:20.060 but that could,

00:27:21.320 in fact,

00:27:21.540 be an artifact

00:27:22.000 of just how you went

00:27:23.180 looking for data.

00:27:24.660 And obviously,

00:27:25.160 it doesn't differentiate

00:27:26.100 the market-as-origin thesis

00:27:28.500 from the market-as-amplifier thesis.

00:27:32.140 Is there more there, Alina?

00:27:33.700 Yeah, you're exactly right.

00:27:35.380 And just to reiterate,

00:27:36.860 at the time,

00:27:37.540 people were not allowed

00:27:38.460 to acknowledge

00:27:39.780 that the virus

00:27:40.420 was spreading

00:27:40.900 from human to human.

00:27:42.480 There are anecdotes,

00:27:43.820 reports from Wuhan

00:27:45.060 where doctors,

00:27:46.200 for example,

00:27:46.740 were not allowed

00:27:47.400 to wear masks

00:27:48.400 because they were told

00:27:50.440 that this virus

00:27:50.940 is not spreading

00:27:51.520 human to human.

00:27:52.820 So, to wear a mask

00:27:54.000 would acknowledge

00:27:54.840 that they could catch it

00:27:56.840 from their patients.

00:27:58.180 So, in that sense,

00:27:59.400 investigators were not allowed

00:28:00.660 to look for people

00:28:01.820 who just caught it

00:28:02.840 from other people.

00:28:03.700 They were looking for people

00:28:04.500 who had exposure

00:28:05.880 to animals,

00:28:06.960 had eaten at a restaurant

00:28:08.160 where there was a live animal,

00:28:09.180 for example.

00:28:10.260 Well, that's an amazing change

00:28:11.540 because you,

00:28:12.980 when you describe it that way,

00:28:15.020 it seems like

00:28:16.080 a political maneuver

00:28:17.620 to want to put

00:28:19.740 the bravest face possible

00:28:21.080 on the top

00:28:22.480 of this pandemic.

00:28:23.440 but, obviously,

00:28:25.500 the Chinese have

00:28:26.560 changed their behavior

00:28:27.940 rather markedly

00:28:29.200 since.

00:28:30.200 They've gone so far

00:28:31.080 as to, I believe,

00:28:32.280 weld people

00:28:32.920 into their apartments

00:28:33.820 and their zero COVID policy

00:28:35.680 to the eyes

00:28:36.620 of the rest of the world

00:28:37.520 has looked,

00:28:39.360 for now,

00:28:40.540 several years,

00:28:42.000 fairly berserk.

00:28:43.620 So,

00:28:44.400 what are you actually saying

00:28:46.000 about the

00:28:46.860 political,

00:28:48.300 social,

00:28:49.360 cultural

00:28:49.880 attitude

00:28:50.980 of the Chinese

00:28:52.480 in the first

00:28:53.640 months

00:28:54.660 of the pandemic?

00:28:56.820 I think we're saying

00:28:57.420 that it flipped.

00:28:59.140 It went from

00:29:00.120 extraordinary

00:29:01.540 complacency

00:29:02.460 and

00:29:03.020 false reassurance,

00:29:05.520 the period

00:29:06.100 up till roughly

00:29:06.960 the middle of January

00:29:08.200 2020,

00:29:09.960 when they were

00:29:10.880 insisting

00:29:11.740 there was no

00:29:12.260 human-to-human

00:29:12.900 transmission,

00:29:14.240 telling the World Health

00:29:15.160 Organization

00:29:15.740 to spread that message,

00:29:17.620 and also saying

00:29:19.180 they had it under

00:29:19.980 control

00:29:20.540 and that they

00:29:21.200 hadn't had

00:29:21.720 any deaths

00:29:22.680 for 10 days

00:29:23.620 or something.

00:29:24.820 So,

00:29:25.020 there really was

00:29:25.600 a period

00:29:26.040 in January

00:29:26.600 2020

00:29:27.080 when

00:29:27.580 probably

00:29:28.740 local

00:29:29.280 officials

00:29:29.860 were

00:29:31.320 desperate

00:29:32.320 not to

00:29:32.960 get into

00:29:33.380 trouble

00:29:33.680 with

00:29:34.040 more powerful

00:29:35.180 central

00:29:36.100 bureaucrats

00:29:36.820 and were

00:29:37.680 giving out

00:29:38.260 false

00:29:38.640 reassurance

00:29:39.420 about what

00:29:39.880 was happening.

00:29:40.360 Don't worry,

00:29:40.800 we've closed

00:29:41.160 the market

00:29:41.640 and there's

00:29:42.560 no human

00:29:42.980 transmission

00:29:43.500 and the

00:29:44.400 cases that

00:29:44.900 are in

00:29:45.140 hospitals

00:29:45.500 will

00:29:45.980 either recover

00:29:47.100 or die

00:29:47.620 and then

00:29:47.940 it'll

00:29:48.200 peter out.

00:29:49.340 And then

00:29:49.680 by the end

00:29:50.400 of January

00:29:51.000 they suddenly

00:29:51.920 realise

00:29:52.500 because of

00:29:53.480 the flood

00:29:53.980 of people

00:29:54.440 coming into

00:29:55.000 the hospitals

00:29:55.520 that that's

00:29:56.660 wrong,

00:29:57.400 that people

00:29:57.900 are giving

00:29:58.220 it to each

00:29:58.720 other

00:29:58.940 on a

00:29:59.660 massive

00:29:59.940 scale,

00:30:00.540 that it's

00:30:00.800 spreading

00:30:01.060 like mad

00:30:01.560 and that

00:30:01.920 it's

00:30:02.120 killing

00:30:02.320 people.

00:30:03.500 And so

00:30:03.880 they then

00:30:04.520 reacted

00:30:05.680 with

00:30:06.140 very,

00:30:07.180 very draconian

00:30:07.820 lockdowns,

00:30:08.540 as you say,

00:30:09.840 that sort

00:30:10.440 of worked

00:30:11.040 to start

00:30:11.740 with,

00:30:12.100 with the

00:30:12.580 relatively

00:30:13.280 less

00:30:14.520 infectious

00:30:15.340 version of

00:30:16.200 COVID

00:30:16.760 that was

00:30:17.260 then

00:30:17.660 spreading

00:30:18.500 wouldn't

00:30:19.420 have

00:30:19.560 worked

00:30:19.820 with

00:30:20.120 Omicron,

00:30:21.020 for example,

00:30:21.680 two years

00:30:22.100 later.

00:30:23.340 But it

00:30:23.540 worked,

00:30:24.560 you know,

00:30:24.800 Wuhan did

00:30:25.520 manage to

00:30:26.300 stamp it

00:30:26.840 out,

00:30:27.160 but with

00:30:27.520 extraordinarily

00:30:28.660 draconian

00:30:29.480 measures,

00:30:30.280 as you say,

00:30:30.940 you know,

00:30:31.120 welding doors

00:30:32.080 shut and

00:30:32.580 things like

00:30:32.940 that.

00:30:33.580 And then

00:30:33.860 that persisted

00:30:34.820 for a couple

00:30:35.240 of years

00:30:35.620 until towards

00:30:36.440 the end of

00:30:36.700 last year,

00:30:37.200 even that

00:30:37.680 became

00:30:37.980 untenable.

00:30:39.240 They could

00:30:39.640 not stop

00:30:40.260 these milder

00:30:41.560 but more

00:30:41.880 infectious

00:30:42.240 versions of

00:30:42.980 the virus

00:30:43.780 spreading

00:30:44.220 very rapidly

00:30:45.420 and they

00:30:46.500 simply took

00:30:47.540 the lid off.

00:30:48.340 So there's

00:30:48.880 been two

00:30:49.440 changes in

00:30:50.380 China,

00:30:51.080 both of

00:30:51.480 which have

00:30:51.760 probably

00:30:52.420 gone too

00:30:53.320 far in

00:30:53.820 the wrong

00:30:54.100 direction.

00:30:55.340 Yeah,

00:30:55.460 I just,

00:30:55.880 you know,

00:30:56.240 this is the

00:30:56.520 first time

00:30:56.840 I've thought

00:30:57.680 about this,

00:30:58.180 but it

00:30:58.620 just suggests

00:30:59.420 to me

00:30:59.960 that,

00:31:00.900 I mean,

00:31:01.120 given the

00:31:01.660 alacrity with

00:31:02.720 which they

00:31:03.240 started locking

00:31:04.640 down in

00:31:06.020 earnest,

00:31:06.980 it suggests

00:31:07.620 to me that

00:31:08.020 those first

00:31:08.900 months of

00:31:10.740 denialism

00:31:12.020 had to

00:31:13.100 have been

00:31:13.260 based on

00:31:13.640 a sincere

00:31:14.200 belief that

00:31:15.060 there was

00:31:15.920 no human

00:31:16.740 to human

00:31:17.060 transmission

00:31:17.580 or at

00:31:18.340 least it

00:31:19.220 wasn't going

00:31:19.660 to get

00:31:20.060 out of

00:31:20.340 hand because

00:31:21.240 the moment

00:31:21.960 that seemed

00:31:22.880 to be the

00:31:23.200 case,

00:31:23.520 then they

00:31:23.740 went fairly

00:31:24.780 crazy in

00:31:25.340 the other

00:31:25.540 direction.

00:31:26.600 Well,

00:31:26.720 I had to

00:31:27.060 jump in

00:31:27.460 here because

00:31:28.160 actually in

00:31:29.020 the first

00:31:29.380 week of

00:31:29.720 January 2020,

00:31:31.140 the sequence

00:31:31.900 of the virus

00:31:32.480 was being

00:31:32.860 auctioned off

00:31:33.600 to people

00:31:34.180 who make

00:31:34.780 diagnostics and

00:31:36.160 to people

00:31:36.640 who make

00:31:36.960 vaccines.

00:31:38.040 And we

00:31:38.300 know that by

00:31:39.040 I think

00:31:39.300 January 4th,

00:31:40.160 the vaccine

00:31:41.060 production for

00:31:41.740 this virus

00:31:42.280 had jumped

00:31:42.760 into high

00:31:43.200 gear by

00:31:43.760 one of

00:31:44.020 these companies

00:31:44.480 in China.

00:31:45.540 So I

00:31:45.980 think the

00:31:46.400 people there

00:31:46.840 were kind

00:31:47.380 of operating

00:31:47.940 on two

00:31:48.800 truths at

00:31:49.760 the same

00:31:50.040 time.

00:31:50.420 On the

00:31:50.700 one hand,

00:31:51.100 they had

00:31:51.360 to accept

00:31:52.460 what they

00:31:52.800 were being

00:31:53.080 told,

00:31:53.440 that the

00:31:53.660 virus was

00:31:54.060 not spreading

00:31:54.480 human to

00:31:54.900 human.

00:31:55.580 But on

00:31:55.840 the other

00:31:56.140 hand,

00:31:56.380 they also

00:31:56.660 had to

00:31:57.060 manufacture

00:31:57.960 wartime

00:31:59.320 level amounts

00:32:00.040 of vaccine

00:32:00.640 for the

00:32:01.160 virus.

00:32:02.040 So I

00:32:02.820 don't think

00:32:03.080 there was

00:32:03.320 a unified

00:32:03.960 consensus,

00:32:05.180 of course,

00:32:05.460 across this

00:32:05.860 entire huge

00:32:06.360 country.

00:32:07.220 But there

00:32:07.620 were separate

00:32:08.140 groups of

00:32:08.540 people acting

00:32:09.280 on different,

00:32:10.720 almost acting

00:32:11.280 as if they

00:32:12.360 had to accept

00:32:13.060 both truths,

00:32:13.960 the truth that

00:32:14.940 wasn't spreading

00:32:15.520 human to

00:32:16.260 human,

00:32:16.580 but also

00:32:16.920 they had to

00:32:17.300 prepare for

00:32:17.720 a pandemic.

00:32:19.300 Yeah,

00:32:19.360 well,

00:32:19.500 the timeline

00:32:20.180 of Chinese

00:32:21.120 vaccine

00:32:21.860 development,

00:32:22.600 I know,

00:32:23.180 is peculiar

00:32:24.140 given what

00:32:26.020 they claim to

00:32:26.660 have known

00:32:27.120 or not

00:32:27.460 known,

00:32:28.000 and I

00:32:28.860 think it

00:32:29.060 relates to

00:32:29.640 this,

00:32:30.340 the origin

00:32:30.860 thesis.

00:32:32.140 Maybe we

00:32:32.580 should jump

00:32:32.960 there now.

00:32:33.680 What are

00:32:34.320 the various

00:32:35.580 anomalies

00:32:36.140 that suggest

00:32:37.080 a non-natural

00:32:38.140 that is

00:32:39.140 non-zoonotic,

00:32:40.620 non-wet market

00:32:41.560 origin for

00:32:43.160 the virus?

00:32:43.740 And I know

00:32:44.920 these anomalies

00:32:45.540 exist at

00:32:46.220 various levels.

00:32:47.420 There are

00:32:47.660 molecular anomalies

00:32:48.640 with respect to

00:32:49.360 the virus itself,

00:32:50.740 and then there

00:32:51.260 are things like

00:32:51.900 the timeline

00:32:52.700 of Chinese

00:32:53.600 response and

00:32:55.120 vaccine development,

00:32:56.600 and then this

00:32:57.500 is probably the

00:32:57.980 best place to

00:32:58.560 talk about

00:32:59.200 the various

00:33:00.220 grant proposals

00:33:01.020 that implicate

00:33:02.300 Western

00:33:02.960 involvement,

00:33:04.000 EcoHealth

00:33:04.460 Alliance,

00:33:05.020 et cetera.

00:33:05.900 But I don't

00:33:06.540 know who wants

00:33:07.020 to take this

00:33:07.800 first, but

00:33:08.300 walk me

00:33:08.840 through the

00:33:09.780 evidence for

00:33:10.460 non-natural

00:33:11.560 origin.

00:33:12.480 Well, I think

00:33:13.060 I could talk

00:33:13.500 about this

00:33:13.840 for hours.

00:33:14.700 There's quite

00:33:15.400 a bit of

00:33:15.760 evidence pointing

00:33:16.600 to a lab

00:33:17.520 origin,

00:33:18.540 although there's

00:33:19.240 no key

00:33:20.120 direct or

00:33:21.400 definitive

00:33:21.780 evidence for

00:33:22.480 either natural

00:33:23.260 or lab

00:33:23.680 origin.

00:33:24.620 So I'll

00:33:25.040 try and be

00:33:25.460 brief.

00:33:26.300 So I think

00:33:26.660 that the

00:33:27.000 main key

00:33:28.280 points for

00:33:28.800 a lab

00:33:29.620 origin is

00:33:30.380 one,

00:33:30.640 the location.

00:33:31.700 So Wuhan

00:33:32.120 is a place

00:33:32.680 where even

00:33:33.520 the top

00:33:34.240 SARS virus

00:33:35.340 researchers

00:33:36.000 didn't

00:33:36.800 believe that

00:33:37.360 an outbreak

00:33:38.320 would occur.

00:33:39.560 So when

00:33:40.300 the Wuhan

00:33:41.260 Institute of

00:33:41.780 Virology

00:33:42.520 scientists,

00:33:43.860 who have

00:33:44.340 spent the

00:33:44.780 last decade

00:33:45.380 collecting these

00:33:46.040 viruses,

00:33:46.740 first heard of

00:33:47.420 this outbreak

00:33:48.000 in her city,

00:33:49.120 she said,

00:33:49.660 could it have

00:33:50.020 come from

00:33:50.300 my lab?

00:33:50.700 Because we

00:33:51.060 never believed

00:33:51.680 that a

00:33:52.460 SARS-like virus

00:33:53.060 would break

00:33:53.620 out in

00:33:53.960 Wuhan city.

00:33:54.920 They in

00:33:55.220 fact used

00:33:55.660 their own

00:33:56.160 city as

00:33:56.960 a negative

00:33:57.420 control,

00:33:58.040 so a place

00:33:58.520 where they

00:33:58.900 would expect

00:33:59.360 zero people

00:34:01.080 to be exposed

00:34:02.000 to this type

00:34:02.520 of bat

00:34:02.820 coronavirus.

00:34:04.640 And yet,

00:34:05.040 this was

00:34:05.520 the location

00:34:06.200 of arguably

00:34:07.620 the largest

00:34:08.540 collection and

00:34:09.920 manipulation

00:34:10.800 sensor of

00:34:11.760 SARS-like

00:34:12.400 viruses from

00:34:13.180 that region

00:34:13.720 resembling this

00:34:14.640 pandemic virus.

00:34:15.900 So we've got

00:34:16.520 the location.

00:34:17.320 Let me just

00:34:17.680 make sure I

00:34:18.420 understand what

00:34:19.060 you're saying

00:34:19.380 there.

00:34:19.620 So you're

00:34:20.340 saying that

00:34:21.000 Wuhan is

00:34:22.220 not a place

00:34:23.220 where you

00:34:24.620 would expect

00:34:25.300 a natural

00:34:26.760 ambient level

00:34:27.980 of SARS

00:34:29.200 viruses because

00:34:30.060 the horseshoe

00:34:31.360 bats don't

00:34:32.060 live locally?

00:34:33.620 Is that

00:34:33.920 what you're

00:34:34.320 saying?

00:34:35.120 No.

00:34:35.460 So the

00:34:35.840 horseshoe

00:34:36.180 bats do

00:34:36.560 live there,

00:34:37.360 but to

00:34:37.740 find that

00:34:38.480 type of

00:34:38.880 SARS-like

00:34:39.320 virus,

00:34:40.120 these scientists

00:34:40.600 had to make

00:34:41.180 trips every

00:34:41.740 year far

00:34:42.420 down south.

00:34:43.140 So they

00:34:43.360 had to

00:34:43.640 travel thousands

00:34:44.340 of kilometers

00:34:44.980 down south

00:34:45.760 to South

00:34:46.520 China,

00:34:46.900 to Yunnan.

00:34:47.820 They even

00:34:48.200 went across

00:34:48.680 borders to

00:34:49.200 Southeast Asia

00:34:49.820 down south.

00:34:50.660 So they

00:34:50.900 were collecting

00:34:51.420 across eight

00:34:52.220 different

00:34:52.700 countries,

00:34:53.660 South China

00:34:54.120 and seven

00:34:55.000 Southeast Asian

00:34:55.640 countries in

00:34:56.280 that belt

00:34:56.860 where they

00:34:57.540 predicted

00:34:58.300 there was the

00:34:59.000 highest

00:34:59.380 prevalence of

00:35:00.760 these type

00:35:01.180 of viruses.

00:35:02.420 So that

00:35:03.060 type of

00:35:03.420 bat,

00:35:03.660 the horseshoe

00:35:04.040 bats do

00:35:04.620 live broadly

00:35:05.340 across China,

00:35:06.220 but to

00:35:06.920 find those

00:35:07.600 viruses,

00:35:08.180 you have to

00:35:08.400 go very

00:35:09.020 far down

00:35:09.480 south.

00:35:10.380 And so

00:35:10.880 even if you

00:35:11.640 look at the

00:35:12.040 EcoHealth

00:35:12.500 Alliance,

00:35:12.960 so this is

00:35:13.380 a New

00:35:13.840 York-based

00:35:14.500 US

00:35:15.440 non-profit

00:35:16.000 that channels

00:35:17.060 money from

00:35:17.860 the US

00:35:18.640 government to

00:35:19.380 that Wuhan

00:35:19.780 lab and

00:35:20.700 other places,

00:35:21.600 they recently

00:35:22.880 published a

00:35:23.640 map of

00:35:24.400 the risk of

00:35:25.400 being exposed

00:35:26.200 to these

00:35:26.520 viruses and

00:35:27.300 Wuhan is

00:35:27.780 nowhere near

00:35:28.660 the hot

00:35:29.260 zone.

00:35:30.620 Right.

00:35:30.940 Okay, so

00:35:31.480 I derailed

00:35:32.500 you.

00:35:32.720 Please continue.

00:35:34.000 Oh, no worries.

00:35:34.600 So on the

00:35:35.480 other hand,

00:35:36.080 this lab,

00:35:37.340 they had an

00:35:38.160 extremely unique

00:35:39.260 research program,

00:35:40.120 so it's very

00:35:40.640 hard to find

00:35:41.160 this type of

00:35:41.620 research program

00:35:42.200 in any other

00:35:42.880 lab.

00:35:43.580 So you have

00:35:44.640 labs that

00:35:45.260 go out there

00:35:46.320 and collect

00:35:46.700 tens of

00:35:47.040 thousands of

00:35:47.520 samples from

00:35:48.340 bats, from

00:35:49.380 animals in the

00:35:49.980 wildlife trade,

00:35:50.680 and even from

00:35:51.180 sick people.

00:35:52.080 So this lab

00:35:52.540 was doing that,

00:35:53.500 but they also

00:35:54.100 took it one

00:35:54.700 step further.

00:35:55.540 Once they had

00:35:56.080 all these very

00:35:56.860 interesting novel

00:35:57.920 viruses, they

00:35:58.780 would then

00:35:59.180 dissect them

00:36:00.020 in the lab.

00:36:00.540 They would

00:36:00.780 break them

00:36:01.220 down, recombine

00:36:02.500 them seamlessly,

00:36:03.960 so leaving no

00:36:04.600 scar or trace of

00:36:05.500 having engineered

00:36:06.180 them, and try to

00:36:07.900 see how these

00:36:09.000 viruses could one

00:36:09.820 day infect people.

00:36:10.660 So they were

00:36:11.300 trying to predict

00:36:12.120 pandemics and

00:36:12.940 try to come up

00:36:13.960 with therapeutics

00:36:14.620 and vaccines for

00:36:15.540 potential pandemics

00:36:16.620 in the future, but

00:36:17.740 to do that, they

00:36:18.500 had to bring some

00:36:20.220 of these viruses

00:36:20.860 closer to that

00:36:22.340 type of pandemic

00:36:23.260 potential.

00:36:23.740 And we've seen

00:36:24.920 from some of

00:36:25.520 the released

00:36:26.800 progress reports

00:36:28.140 sent to the

00:36:28.660 NIH that in

00:36:29.940 some cases, they

00:36:30.740 accidentally really

00:36:32.400 enhanced some of

00:36:33.420 these viruses in

00:36:34.140 the lab in animal

00:36:35.420 models of human

00:36:37.100 disease.

00:36:37.960 So they had this

00:36:39.280 very unique

00:36:39.760 program where

00:36:40.940 quite risky

00:36:42.140 research was being

00:36:42.900 done, and it

00:36:43.660 was only found

00:36:44.280 out later, after

00:36:45.460 the pandemic

00:36:45.880 started, that

00:36:46.520 much of this

00:36:47.200 research, including

00:36:48.320 involving live

00:36:49.500 viruses, had

00:36:50.140 been done at

00:36:50.640 quite low

00:36:51.180 biosafety, at a

00:36:52.680 biosafety that

00:36:53.520 could not have

00:36:54.240 protected them

00:36:54.920 from being

00:36:55.360 infected by

00:36:56.000 viruses like

00:36:56.560 the pandemic

00:36:56.980 virus.

00:36:58.040 Let's linger on

00:36:58.900 that point.

00:36:59.340 So what is the

00:37:00.480 biosafety level

00:37:01.780 of the lab, and

00:37:03.980 how does that

00:37:04.680 relate to

00:37:05.580 biosafety levels

00:37:07.500 elsewhere?

00:37:08.620 So Matt, do you

00:37:09.220 want me to take

00:37:09.760 this?

00:37:10.340 Yes, keep going.

00:37:11.060 You're doing a

00:37:11.540 very good job,

00:37:12.120 Alina.

00:37:12.820 So when the

00:37:14.120 outbreak was first

00:37:15.000 detected, lots of

00:37:16.360 people were just

00:37:16.880 thinking about the

00:37:17.660 top biosafety lab

00:37:19.200 in Wuhan, so

00:37:19.980 their BSL-4, the

00:37:21.440 maximum biosafety

00:37:22.600 level.

00:37:23.400 But the truth

00:37:24.000 was, all of

00:37:25.060 their research on

00:37:25.840 these bad

00:37:26.300 coronaviruses,

00:37:27.200 including the

00:37:27.740 SARS-like viruses,

00:37:28.820 had been done at

00:37:29.560 lower levels at

00:37:30.840 BSL-2 and BSL-3.

00:37:33.520 So they worked

00:37:34.640 with live viruses

00:37:35.520 even at BSL-2.

00:37:37.140 And at this

00:37:37.640 level, you

00:37:38.460 cannot be

00:37:39.020 protected from

00:37:39.800 an infectious

00:37:40.760 airborne SARS-like

00:37:41.940 virus, and

00:37:43.040 there's no

00:37:43.540 requirement, even

00:37:44.560 if people are

00:37:45.180 sick, even if

00:37:46.040 they fall sick,

00:37:47.040 they don't have

00:37:47.620 to report it,

00:37:48.340 they don't have

00:37:48.720 to quarantine, so

00:37:49.920 there would have

00:37:50.540 been no record

00:37:51.200 of someone being

00:37:51.920 infected in the

00:37:52.640 lab by such a

00:37:53.320 virus.

00:37:54.560 Wow, well, that's

00:37:55.260 pretty damning in

00:37:56.700 its own right.

00:37:57.600 You know, John

00:37:57.980 Stewart famously

00:37:59.080 made the joke that

00:37:59.980 you've got a

00:38:00.680 novel bat

00:38:01.220 coronavirus outbreak,

00:38:02.680 and what do you

00:38:04.240 have in town?

00:38:05.080 You've got the

00:38:05.540 Wuhan Institute of

00:38:06.360 Virology working

00:38:07.120 on precisely these

00:38:07.900 sorts of viruses,

00:38:09.180 and now we find

00:38:10.020 at a level of

00:38:11.080 security that

00:38:12.140 couldn't possibly

00:38:13.140 protect against

00:38:14.060 a leak.

00:38:15.200 On some level,

00:38:16.080 what more do you

00:38:17.360 need to know?

00:38:17.800 I know there

00:38:18.200 is more to

00:38:19.120 know.

00:38:19.580 We'll talk

00:38:20.280 about the

00:38:20.780 molecular evidence,

00:38:22.340 but that alone,

00:38:23.140 isn't that damning?

00:38:24.440 Can I just add

00:38:25.060 to that point?

00:38:26.720 This wasn't just

00:38:27.700 one of the

00:38:29.360 Chinese

00:38:29.960 virology labs.

00:38:31.860 This was

00:38:32.440 pretty well the

00:38:33.640 leading virology

00:38:34.680 lab in China,

00:38:35.800 with the possible

00:38:36.340 exception of one

00:38:36.980 or two others,

00:38:37.760 and certainly the

00:38:38.800 leading one for

00:38:39.800 SARS-like

00:38:40.340 coronavirus.

00:38:41.440 This was the

00:38:42.240 lab that had

00:38:43.300 tracked down where

00:38:44.580 the SARS virus

00:38:45.620 came from

00:38:46.260 that caused

00:38:47.780 the 2003

00:38:48.720 epidemic.

00:38:50.660 And they were

00:38:51.120 very proud of

00:38:51.740 that fact.

00:38:52.300 They'd found a

00:38:53.080 cave in Yunnan

00:38:54.180 with horseshoe

00:38:55.260 bats in it,

00:38:56.380 in which very

00:38:57.820 close relatives

00:38:58.640 of the SARS

00:39:00.160 virus were

00:39:00.980 circulating.

00:39:02.520 So, you know,

00:39:03.260 this is not just

00:39:03.940 any lab.

00:39:04.760 This is the

00:39:05.320 main SARS-like

00:39:07.000 coronavirus research

00:39:08.260 lab in the

00:39:09.000 world,

00:39:09.720 effectively.

00:39:11.260 And the

00:39:12.520 particular

00:39:13.400 striking feature

00:39:15.380 is that when

00:39:16.100 this pandemic

00:39:16.840 broke out,

00:39:18.120 they announced

00:39:18.940 that they

00:39:19.460 already had,

00:39:20.740 in their

00:39:21.200 possession,

00:39:21.880 in that lab,

00:39:23.620 a very close

00:39:24.380 relative of

00:39:25.320 this new

00:39:25.820 virus.

00:39:26.820 They called

00:39:27.240 it RATG13.

00:39:28.660 We later

00:39:29.000 found that

00:39:29.380 they changed

00:39:29.900 the name

00:39:30.500 just before

00:39:31.120 this,

00:39:31.440 so it took

00:39:31.760 us a long

00:39:32.100 time to

00:39:32.620 connect that

00:39:34.000 name to

00:39:35.180 an outbreak

00:39:35.880 of pneumonia

00:39:36.820 that killed

00:39:37.560 three people

00:39:38.300 and sickened

00:39:39.340 three others

00:39:40.020 in a mine

00:39:41.100 shaft in

00:39:41.700 Yunnan

00:39:42.140 in 2012.

00:39:43.780 And they

00:39:44.080 had made

00:39:44.380 seven expeditions

00:39:45.460 to that

00:39:45.880 mine

00:39:46.160 shaft and

00:39:46.760 they'd

00:39:46.980 come back

00:39:47.340 not just

00:39:47.720 with that

00:39:48.120 one close

00:39:49.280 relative of

00:39:50.040 SARS-CoV-2,

00:39:50.840 but we later

00:39:51.340 found out,

00:39:52.360 not till the

00:39:52.960 middle of

00:39:53.240 2020,

00:39:53.900 but we

00:39:54.160 eventually

00:39:54.480 found out

00:39:54.980 that they'd

00:39:55.420 brought back

00:39:55.800 eight other

00:39:56.580 very closely

00:39:57.800 related viruses.

00:39:59.380 And so up

00:39:59.840 till the

00:40:01.160 middle of

00:40:02.280 2020,

00:40:03.220 the nine

00:40:04.020 closest relatives

00:40:05.120 of this

00:40:06.080 pandemic

00:40:06.560 virus had

00:40:08.300 been collected

00:40:09.060 more than

00:40:09.980 a thousand

00:40:10.440 miles from

00:40:11.080 Wuhan by

00:40:12.360 Wuhan scientists

00:40:13.280 and brought

00:40:14.060 to Wuhan.

00:40:15.880 And that

00:40:16.320 was a

00:40:17.480 pretty

00:40:18.060 striking

00:40:18.680 fact.

00:40:20.640 What

00:40:20.980 then

00:40:21.880 transpired

00:40:23.240 was that

00:40:24.780 the pandemic

00:40:25.740 virus had a

00:40:26.440 unique feature

00:40:27.080 in it.

00:40:27.960 And I think

00:40:28.360 Alina's probably

00:40:29.080 better place

00:40:30.300 to explain

00:40:31.000 what this

00:40:31.560 feature is.

00:40:32.160 It's called

00:40:32.480 a furin

00:40:32.900 cleavage site.

00:40:34.160 It's a

00:40:34.620 short text

00:40:35.780 of DNA,

00:40:36.780 RNA rather,

00:40:38.080 which enables

00:40:38.740 the virus to

00:40:39.520 use a human

00:40:40.140 enzyme called

00:40:40.820 furin,

00:40:41.360 and it

00:40:42.240 greatly

00:40:42.740 enhances

00:40:43.300 its

00:40:43.780 infectivity.

00:40:44.820 It's the

00:40:45.440 reason we're

00:40:45.980 having a

00:40:46.560 pandemic.

00:40:47.840 And when

00:40:48.760 they published

00:40:49.640 the virus,

00:40:50.740 they didn't

00:40:51.860 draw attention

00:40:53.320 to this

00:40:53.880 fact,

00:40:54.320 even though

00:40:54.720 it was the

00:40:55.180 first and

00:40:56.640 to this

00:40:57.080 day the

00:40:57.800 only SARS-like

00:40:59.700 coronavirus that

00:41:01.340 had this

00:41:01.820 feature in

00:41:02.560 it.

00:41:03.600 And I

00:41:04.200 think Alina

00:41:04.780 should be

00:41:05.700 the one

00:41:06.020 to give a

00:41:07.420 rather good

00:41:07.860 metaphor for

00:41:08.660 why this was

00:41:09.800 surprising that

00:41:10.620 they didn't

00:41:11.040 draw attention

00:41:11.600 to this.

00:41:12.940 Well, let's

00:41:13.680 jump there

00:41:14.380 next, but

00:41:14.880 Alina, perhaps

00:41:15.840 you can start

00:41:16.540 by explaining,

00:41:18.520 if an

00:41:18.940 explanation is

00:41:19.580 possible, why

00:41:21.240 they would

00:41:21.940 have been

00:41:22.160 working with

00:41:23.400 these viruses

00:41:24.060 at a level

00:41:25.800 2 condition

00:41:27.360 as opposed to

00:41:28.180 the level 4

00:41:28.880 condition that

00:41:29.560 was available

00:41:30.780 to them in

00:41:31.680 the same lab.

00:41:32.960 Yeah, so I

00:41:33.620 think this

00:41:34.320 lab had been

00:41:36.380 searching and

00:41:37.060 hunting and

00:41:37.720 collecting these

00:41:38.480 viruses for so

00:41:39.540 many years that

00:41:40.400 they really

00:41:41.200 let their

00:41:41.860 guards down.

00:41:43.000 So up until

00:41:43.900 the pandemic

00:41:44.620 started, there

00:41:45.720 was no evidence

00:41:46.800 that a bad

00:41:47.940 virus, a bad

00:41:48.940 SARS-like virus,

00:41:50.060 could jump into

00:41:50.800 a person and

00:41:51.860 immediately cause

00:41:52.640 an outbreak.

00:41:53.860 Normally, it

00:41:54.860 takes a while for

00:41:55.720 the virus to

00:41:56.320 become capable of

00:41:57.360 causing massive

00:41:58.660 outbreaks in

00:41:59.300 people.

00:41:59.920 It needs to

00:42:00.360 adapt, find the

00:42:01.200 right combination

00:42:01.940 of mutations to

00:42:02.820 make it capable

00:42:03.440 of first infecting

00:42:04.260 a person, creating

00:42:05.120 enough copies of

00:42:05.960 itself to spread

00:42:06.800 from person to

00:42:07.660 person and

00:42:08.400 potentially through

00:42:09.100 the air.

00:42:09.960 So in this

00:42:11.120 case, these

00:42:11.960 scientists had

00:42:12.460 been going to

00:42:13.660 all these bad

00:42:14.260 caves, sometimes

00:42:15.100 without masks,

00:42:16.080 without any

00:42:16.520 protective gear, and

00:42:17.820 they've been doing

00:42:18.260 it for so many

00:42:18.860 years and nothing

00:42:19.540 bad happened.

00:42:20.460 So why would

00:42:21.540 they need to

00:42:22.320 upgrade to a

00:42:23.200 higher biosafety

00:42:23.880 level?

00:42:24.600 Because once you

00:42:25.220 go from BSL-2 to

00:42:26.100 BSL-3, it's a

00:42:27.720 lot.

00:42:28.100 It's a lot more

00:42:28.800 of cost, time,

00:42:30.220 training.

00:42:31.160 You have all

00:42:31.760 these special

00:42:32.160 requirements.

00:42:32.820 It becomes very

00:42:33.600 challenging to do

00:42:34.380 the experiment and

00:42:35.460 very costly.

00:42:36.040 So if you are

00:42:37.820 the scientist and

00:42:39.480 you don't really

00:42:40.640 fear these viruses

00:42:41.500 anymore, is there

00:42:42.360 really a need to

00:42:43.320 expend all that

00:42:44.260 extra money and

00:42:45.180 cost and personnel

00:42:46.140 for this extra

00:42:47.160 safety?

00:42:47.900 But aren't we

00:42:48.260 now talking about

00:42:49.140 manipulations to

00:42:50.040 the virus that, by

00:42:51.320 definition, make it

00:42:52.440 more likely to

00:42:53.740 infect humans?

00:42:54.840 I mean, we're

00:42:55.720 going to talk about

00:42:56.460 a furin cleavage

00:42:57.640 site and any other

00:42:59.000 molecular evidence

00:42:59.760 now, but isn't

00:43:00.760 the allegation that

00:43:02.280 they were performing

00:43:03.460 gain-of-function

00:43:04.620 research of some

00:43:05.580 sort, which

00:43:06.920 should, by

00:43:08.100 definition, have

00:43:08.820 made them more

00:43:09.780 concerned about

00:43:11.440 getting infected

00:43:12.740 themselves when

00:43:13.840 working with these

00:43:14.840 viruses?

00:43:15.980 So even in the

00:43:16.700 case of the first

00:43:17.420 SARS outbreak, the

00:43:18.700 early variants of

00:43:20.440 that virus weren't

00:43:21.240 very good at

00:43:21.800 causing outbreaks

00:43:22.540 in people.

00:43:23.100 It was only at a

00:43:23.880 later stage, once

00:43:24.840 it had collected

00:43:25.560 the correct set of

00:43:27.040 mutations that made

00:43:27.840 it well-adapted for

00:43:28.700 people, that it was

00:43:29.600 capable of causing

00:43:30.380 outbreaks.

00:43:31.360 So for these

00:43:32.000 scientists, they

00:43:32.960 had collected some

00:43:34.400 close relatives of

00:43:36.020 the SARS-1 virus, and

00:43:38.040 they were working

00:43:39.100 with these also at

00:43:39.780 low biosafety levels,

00:43:41.060 but I suspect that

00:43:42.080 they didn't feel

00:43:43.420 threatened.

00:43:44.100 They didn't feel

00:43:44.660 like, you know, even

00:43:45.440 if I spill this, it's

00:43:46.820 going to cause an

00:43:47.320 outbreak.

00:43:48.020 So they probably had

00:43:49.360 this perception that

00:43:50.180 it would require quite

00:43:51.140 a few steps, quite a

00:43:52.180 period of time,

00:43:53.080 repeated spill

00:43:54.400 lowers, repeated

00:43:55.120 infections, before it

00:43:56.640 would reach a

00:43:57.340 pandemic level.

00:43:58.860 They were also

00:43:59.580 working with diverse

00:44:01.240 SARS-like viruses.

00:44:02.500 They were going out

00:44:03.320 and intentionally

00:44:04.220 looking for SARS-like

00:44:05.620 viruses that were

00:44:06.780 different from the

00:44:08.080 SARS-1 virus, and it

00:44:09.940 was with these

00:44:10.480 viruses that they

00:44:11.360 were doing experiments

00:44:12.480 to see how they

00:44:13.500 might eventually also

00:44:14.540 cause outbreaks in

00:44:15.260 people.

00:44:16.040 So these different

00:44:17.200 SARS-like viruses were

00:44:18.660 seen as low-risk

00:44:19.940 viruses.

00:44:20.980 So they weren't seen

00:44:21.600 as close relatives of

00:44:23.000 the first SARS virus,

00:44:23.980 likely to spill over

00:44:24.740 into people at any

00:44:25.400 time, but they were

00:44:26.280 seen as things that

00:44:26.980 you could manipulate in

00:44:28.260 the lab and not be so

00:44:29.660 worried that you would

00:44:30.900 cause a pandemic.

00:44:31.540 Okay, so let's talk

00:44:33.380 about the virus

00:44:34.380 itself, and you

00:44:36.440 described manipulations

00:44:38.280 that were seamless

00:44:39.980 and undetectable.

00:44:42.340 What is detectable?

00:44:44.140 When you look at a

00:44:45.320 virus of this kind,

00:44:48.100 what are the signs

00:44:49.320 that it may have been

00:44:51.060 manipulated, and what

00:44:52.540 signs exist in the

00:44:54.600 SARS-CoV-2 virus as we

00:44:56.460 have come to know it?

00:44:57.880 It's incredibly

00:44:58.720 difficult to distinguish

00:44:59.980 a lab-engineered

00:45:01.500 virus from a natural

00:45:02.560 virus, because any

00:45:03.900 lab-engineered virus

00:45:05.100 has to be derived from

00:45:06.480 a virus that was

00:45:07.280 found in nature.

00:45:08.720 Scientists don't have

00:45:09.560 a magical ability to

00:45:10.700 just conjure novel

00:45:12.500 viruses, the entire

00:45:13.520 blueprint by themselves.

00:45:14.480 They have to base it

00:45:15.760 on something they found

00:45:16.860 in nature.

00:45:18.120 And the problem, the

00:45:18.980 challenge is that

00:45:19.700 nowadays the technology

00:45:21.060 to build these viruses,

00:45:22.880 to entirely synthesize

00:45:24.780 their genome, is so

00:45:25.840 advanced that you can

00:45:26.920 do it leaving no trace.

00:45:28.060 And for example, when

00:45:29.720 this virus, when the

00:45:31.120 pandemic virus sequence

00:45:32.640 was posted, it took

00:45:34.060 very little time for

00:45:35.000 several groups of

00:45:36.020 scientists around the

00:45:36.820 world to just

00:45:37.400 synthetically create it

00:45:38.640 from scratch, with no

00:45:40.080 trace of them having

00:45:41.600 engineered it.

00:45:42.400 In fact, they had to

00:45:43.300 deliberately put in

00:45:44.380 traces of them

00:45:45.320 engineering it.

00:45:46.200 They deliberately put in

00:45:47.340 a few mutations so that

00:45:48.840 they could tell when

00:45:49.540 someone in the lab had

00:45:50.500 been infected by the

00:45:51.800 virus in the lab, or

00:45:52.920 had caught the natural

00:45:53.960 pandemic virus in the

00:45:56.000 train or the coffee

00:45:56.780 shop.

00:45:57.080 Just to be clear, Alina,

00:45:58.680 so you just started

00:46:00.140 saying that scientists

00:46:02.380 cannot manufacture

00:46:03.900 viruses out of whole

00:46:05.480 cloth.

00:46:06.000 They have to piece

00:46:07.180 things together from

00:46:08.180 naturally occurring

00:46:09.420 viruses.

00:46:10.160 But then you just said

00:46:11.460 that scientists, once we

00:46:13.840 had the genome

00:46:14.600 sequenced, they built

00:46:16.380 their versions of

00:46:18.100 SARS-CoV-2 from

00:46:19.520 scratch using nothing

00:46:21.420 but base pairs.

00:46:22.720 Can you square those

00:46:23.720 two claims?

00:46:24.420 Yes, so once you know

00:46:26.580 what the code is, the

00:46:27.700 code is usually from

00:46:29.080 nature.

00:46:30.020 You can synthetically

00:46:31.300 create the virus.

00:46:32.560 But what I mean by you

00:46:33.540 can't conjure a virus out

00:46:34.800 of thin air is you can't

00:46:35.980 just make something that

00:46:36.840 has never been seen

00:46:37.620 before.

00:46:38.260 It's like based on

00:46:39.000 nothing.

00:46:39.800 So you have to use

00:46:41.060 sequences that you

00:46:42.040 found in nature to make

00:46:43.380 this artificial virus in

00:46:44.920 the lab.

00:46:45.760 Yeah, and just to give

00:46:47.160 you an example, Sam,

00:46:48.860 that might be helpful.

00:46:49.780 What we're mainly

00:46:51.740 talking about here is

00:46:53.460 manipulations to one of

00:46:54.860 the genes, the spike

00:46:56.080 gene.

00:46:56.980 So there's about, is it

00:46:58.980 15 genes roughly in

00:47:00.860 these SARS-like

00:47:02.720 coronaviruses?

00:47:03.980 They're strung out like

00:47:05.880 beads on a string,

00:47:06.800 although they do

00:47:07.380 overlap, so it's a bit

00:47:08.580 confusing in some ways.

00:47:11.060 There's one gene that

00:47:12.660 codes for the spike, the

00:47:14.620 thing that sticks out of

00:47:15.620 the surface of the virus

00:47:16.760 and that binds onto

00:47:17.700 human cells.

00:47:18.400 And nearly all the

00:47:20.620 genetic manipulation

00:47:21.600 experiments have involved

00:47:23.060 the spike gene.

00:47:24.800 And so what they've done

00:47:25.920 is they've said, we've

00:47:27.660 just collected this virus

00:47:28.800 in the wild.

00:47:30.100 We've read its sequence.

00:47:32.160 It's got a different

00:47:33.040 spike gene from the one

00:47:34.480 that we're used to.

00:47:36.220 We're going to

00:47:36.820 synthesize a piece of

00:47:39.100 RNA, or you'll start

00:47:40.580 with DNA, but then you'll

00:47:41.620 change it into RNA, that

00:47:43.420 is that spike gene from

00:47:45.380 this wild virus.

00:47:46.780 We're going to synthesize

00:47:47.720 that from scratch, but

00:47:48.740 based on the exact

00:47:49.740 sequence that we've seen

00:47:50.800 in nature.

00:47:51.820 We're going to then swap

00:47:53.020 that into a virus that

00:47:54.980 we've already got growing

00:47:56.180 in the lab, taking out

00:47:57.940 that virus's spike gene

00:47:59.140 and putting in this new

00:48:00.000 one.

00:48:00.540 You've now got a

00:48:01.240 manipulated virus that

00:48:02.540 has a brand new, well,

00:48:04.240 it has a different spike

00:48:05.440 gene than it would

00:48:06.120 normally have, but it's

00:48:07.720 got the same other genes

00:48:09.280 as it would normally

00:48:09.980 have.

00:48:10.300 So it's very much a sort

00:48:11.960 of jigsaw puzzle of genes

00:48:13.860 here that is mainly

00:48:15.120 going on.

00:48:15.740 But there's another

00:48:17.220 level, which is to

00:48:18.780 insert or delete

00:48:21.620 sequences within the

00:48:23.440 spike gene, and that's

00:48:25.060 where the furin

00:48:25.660 cleavage site comes in.

00:48:27.020 So is the only sign

00:48:29.400 of synthetic

00:48:31.700 manipulation that you

00:48:34.220 can't find analogous

00:48:36.820 sequences in the wild?

00:48:39.360 I'm just speculating here.

00:48:40.920 I don't know if this is

00:48:41.700 true, but let's just say

00:48:43.240 that there is no

00:48:44.660 example, and Alina, tell

00:48:46.640 me if this is in fact

00:48:48.040 the case, there is no

00:48:49.460 example of a fern

00:48:51.200 cleavage site in a

00:48:53.500 horseshoe bat found in

00:48:55.200 the wild.

00:48:56.160 Therefore, there's no

00:48:58.100 appropriate story of how

00:49:00.540 this could have been

00:49:01.940 zoonotic once you see

00:49:03.940 this piece of molecular

00:49:05.620 evidence.

00:49:06.460 I mean, either it's there

00:49:07.740 and you haven't found it,

00:49:08.560 or it's just not there,

00:49:09.500 and by definition, it

00:49:11.300 had to have been the

00:49:12.480 result of human

00:49:13.920 manipulation.

00:49:15.120 Well, I think there's a

00:49:16.060 fundamental challenge

00:49:17.400 here, which is that we

00:49:18.520 don't know what viruses

00:49:19.580 and what sequences the

00:49:20.940 Wuhan lab had found.

00:49:22.340 So if you don't know

00:49:23.020 what the references are,

00:49:24.220 how do you know what

00:49:25.120 might have been

00:49:25.860 engineered in that lab?

00:49:27.580 And maybe an analogy I

00:49:29.020 can make is with AI.

00:49:30.780 So nowadays, AI is so

00:49:32.580 sophisticated that it

00:49:33.900 can write its own

00:49:34.740 stories from like

00:49:36.140 completely create new

00:49:38.160 stories by itself.

00:49:39.660 So in that sense, it's

00:49:40.760 hard to tell whether a

00:49:41.800 particular story was

00:49:42.900 written by an AI or by

00:49:44.700 a person.

00:49:45.800 But in science, in

00:49:46.940 terms of writing virus

00:49:48.100 genomes, we are not at

00:49:49.220 that level yet.

00:49:50.180 We're still at a level

00:49:50.960 where you have to copy

00:49:52.280 and paste pieces that

00:49:53.720 you've found from

00:49:54.660 pre-existing stories,

00:49:55.800 let's say pre-existing

00:49:56.520 virus sequences.

00:49:58.180 So without having access

00:50:00.600 to that database of

00:50:01.920 sequences, how do you

00:50:03.540 know if something was

00:50:04.740 derived from that or

00:50:06.280 whether it just come

00:50:06.980 from nature?

00:50:07.440 And we don't have

00:50:08.500 access simply because

00:50:09.680 of a lack of

00:50:10.480 cooperation at this

00:50:11.900 point with the

00:50:13.200 Chinese, correct?

00:50:14.900 Yes.

00:50:15.300 And the database in

00:50:16.920 question, which Alina

00:50:18.820 refers to, is, as far

00:50:20.880 as we know, a pretty

00:50:21.700 well complete database

00:50:23.320 of all the viruses they

00:50:24.980 had collected over 15

00:50:26.920 years or so, and their

00:50:29.680 sequences, their

00:50:30.780 locations, their other

00:50:32.900 features of them.

00:50:34.160 And that database was

00:50:36.480 online until the 12th of

00:50:39.040 September, 2019.

00:50:40.780 It then went offline.

00:50:42.720 It came back briefly

00:50:43.640 online in early 2020, but

00:50:45.340 only internally, not

00:50:46.900 available to the outside

00:50:47.980 world, which it had been

00:50:49.720 before, although not all

00:50:51.580 of it.

00:50:51.900 There was a password

00:50:52.580 protected section.

00:50:54.620 There was a paper

00:50:55.880 published by the EcoHealth

00:50:57.180 Alliance in collaboration

00:50:58.140 with the Wuhan Institute of

00:50:59.340 Virology, which came out

00:51:00.360 in 2020, but was written

00:51:02.280 before the pandemic

00:51:03.260 began, which listed a

00:51:06.060 very large number of

00:51:06.940 viruses they had worked

00:51:07.960 on up until the end of

00:51:09.980 2015, the beginning of

00:51:11.260 2016.

00:51:12.920 And so we think we have a

00:51:14.500 fairly complete idea of

00:51:16.340 which viruses they had

00:51:17.340 collected up until that

00:51:18.300 point.

00:51:19.240 But if you look at the

00:51:20.320 published sequences of

00:51:22.120 viruses that they found

00:51:23.840 in 2016, 17, 18, and

00:51:27.400 19, there's very, very

00:51:29.320 little information

00:51:30.640 available at all.

00:51:31.720 And we think it's, we

00:51:33.200 know it's in that

00:51:33.960 database.

00:51:34.940 That database is not

00:51:36.680 being made available.

00:51:38.140 We've asked for it

00:51:39.320 repeatedly in every way

00:51:40.840 that we can think of and

00:51:42.780 said, wouldn't it be the

00:51:44.400 perfect way to exonerate

00:51:45.920 the lab is to show us

00:51:47.700 exactly what you had in

00:51:48.980 the lab and show that you

00:51:50.320 did not have any virus that

00:51:52.640 could have been used as a

00:51:53.840 backbone or a template for

00:51:55.660 making SARS-CoV-2.

00:51:57.340 And the answer comes back,

00:51:59.720 well, if we shared it,

00:52:01.000 people might hack it,

00:52:02.980 which is frankly a

00:52:03.940 meaningless thing to say

00:52:05.800 because if you share

00:52:06.660 something, it doesn't

00:52:07.200 matter who hacks it.

00:52:08.840 You know, hacking is for

00:52:09.960 secret stuff.

00:52:11.720 So we just don't

00:52:13.300 understand why they don't

00:52:14.520 share that database.

00:52:16.020 And when you say we,

00:52:17.400 we, you're talking about

00:52:18.380 Western governments have

00:52:19.440 requested this of the

00:52:20.280 Chinese or journalists or

00:52:22.060 the scientific

00:52:23.800 establishment?

00:52:24.320 So it's actually been

00:52:26.100 quite astonishing.

00:52:26.860 So the World Health

00:52:28.000 Organization sent a team

00:52:29.620 of scientists in, in

00:52:30.900 early 2021 to Wuhan to

00:52:33.620 investigate the origin of

00:52:34.740 COVID-19.

00:52:35.920 And that team included the

00:52:37.460 president of the EcoHealth

00:52:38.560 Alliance, which

00:52:39.260 collaborates with the Wuhan

00:52:40.300 Institute of Virology.

00:52:41.560 And when they went there,

00:52:42.540 they were given this nice

00:52:43.560 tour of the top biosafety

00:52:45.280 level lab in Wuhan.

00:52:47.100 They weren't shown the

00:52:47.820 lower biosafety labs.

00:52:49.340 And the EcoHealth

00:52:50.220 president said he didn't ask

00:52:52.100 for the database, because

00:52:53.280 he knows that there's

00:52:54.620 nothing useful in there.

00:52:56.020 So he asserted, without

00:52:58.220 sharing the data, that we

00:53:00.280 don't need to see this

00:53:01.300 database.

00:53:02.880 Can I just interrupt there,

00:53:03.840 just to answer your

00:53:05.200 question about we?

00:53:06.520 Because, yes, I do mean

00:53:08.000 literally Alina and I,

00:53:09.660 trying to put questions to

00:53:11.280 Xi Jingli herself or

00:53:13.040 Jane Q, who's a

00:53:14.520 journalist who has access

00:53:16.400 to her, and not getting

00:53:17.880 anywhere in terms of

00:53:19.280 responses.

00:53:20.160 But I also mean a sort

00:53:22.980 of community of people

00:53:24.240 who are interested in

00:53:25.120 this subject, some of

00:53:26.600 whom are extremely

00:53:27.440 knowledgeable, some of

00:53:28.920 whom are, as it were,

00:53:30.100 amateurs who've come to

00:53:31.100 this from outside.

00:53:32.360 They're just good at

00:53:32.960 handling data or looking

00:53:34.480 into databases and

00:53:36.220 things like that.

00:53:37.240 And they've also been

00:53:38.380 trying to pose these

00:53:40.120 questions on social media

00:53:41.540 directly, and as you say,

00:53:43.860 through governments,

00:53:45.400 through journalists, and

00:53:46.820 so on.

00:53:47.180 And it's really been an

00:53:49.760 uphill struggle.

00:53:51.180 You know, if mainstream

00:53:53.740 journalists or mainstream

00:53:55.460 politicians were to sort

00:53:57.900 of take this up and do a

00:54:00.440 little bit of research and

00:54:02.020 get to the point where they

00:54:03.360 could ask these tough

00:54:04.400 questions, it's not

00:54:06.100 impossible that we could

00:54:08.000 make a little progress here.

00:54:09.880 But, you know, when it's

00:54:11.280 just a bunch of sleuths with

00:54:14.680 no particular institutional

00:54:16.260 background putting the

00:54:19.100 pressure on, it's very

00:54:20.360 easy to ignore the

00:54:21.440 question.

00:54:22.860 It's easy to see how

00:54:24.340 conversation has proved

00:54:26.880 impossible.

00:54:27.520 Wasn't it the case at one

00:54:28.440 point that the CCP was

00:54:30.420 alleging that the virus had

00:54:32.220 been spread to Wuhan by the

00:54:35.080 Americans or by, I mean,

00:54:36.280 it was an act of

00:54:37.220 bioterrorism that came from

00:54:38.940 outside of China?

00:54:40.260 I mean, didn't things break

00:54:41.020 down that much?

00:54:41.680 There was an athletics

00:54:44.520 tournament in Wuhan in

00:54:46.640 October 2019, the World

00:54:49.900 Military Games, in which

00:54:51.540 lots of countries sent

00:54:52.680 military athletes.

00:54:54.460 And the suggestion was

00:54:57.420 made fairly obliquely by the

00:54:59.500 Chinese authorities that

00:55:01.200 this might have been how the

00:55:02.440 virus got there and that it

00:55:04.280 might indeed have been a

00:55:05.200 bioweapon from Fort

00:55:06.380 Dietrich.

00:55:07.420 They even mentioned the

00:55:08.400 University of North Carolina

00:55:09.520 Chapel Hill, which is another

00:55:11.460 coronavirus research center

00:55:13.300 that collaborates with

00:55:14.260 Wuhan.

00:55:15.300 And, you know, this is only

00:55:17.000 one of many really rather

00:55:19.180 flimsy theories that have

00:55:21.220 been put out there by the

00:55:22.100 Chinese regime.

00:55:22.820 The most notorious one, of

00:55:23.960 course, is the one that they

00:55:24.900 got the World Health

00:55:25.620 Organization to briefly

00:55:27.980 endorse at a rather

00:55:29.880 farcical press conference

00:55:31.140 two years ago this week,

00:55:33.300 which was that it had reached

00:55:36.000 China on frozen food from

00:55:38.120 overseas, frozen seafood in

00:55:39.860 particular, for which there is

00:55:41.440 no evidence.

00:55:42.120 And when you think about it,

00:55:42.780 it makes absolutely no sense

00:55:43.860 because, A, it's not a very

00:55:45.400 good vehicle for transporting

00:55:46.700 viruses, and B, it would

00:55:48.400 infect whoever else is getting

00:55:50.000 frozen food from those sources

00:55:52.240 elsewhere in the world.

00:55:53.500 It wouldn't turn up in just one

00:55:55.000 city.

00:55:55.880 So, you know, there have been

00:55:57.500 some fairly desperate alibis

00:56:00.420 put out there by the Chinese

00:56:02.720 authorities to try and deflect

00:56:05.800 questions about the lab in Wuhan.

00:56:08.500 And also about the market in

00:56:10.540 Wuhan.

00:56:10.920 I mean, we shouldn't forget

00:56:12.380 that the Chinese regime doesn't

00:56:15.000 want it to be blamed on the

00:56:18.280 habit of selling live animals in

00:56:21.240 markets in China either.

00:56:24.560 Yeah.

00:56:24.760 As I said at the top, you know,

00:56:26.340 there's negligence.

00:56:27.400 There's a story of negligence

00:56:28.800 either way, you know, whether it's

00:56:30.320 a wet market or a lab.

00:56:31.840 And in some ways, they're equally

00:56:33.820 damning, although of different

00:56:35.300 cultural practices.

00:56:36.440 Alina, is there more to say about

00:56:38.720 the molecular evidence or lack

00:56:40.440 thereof before we move on to the

00:56:42.120 political story and the story of

00:56:45.160 bad incentives and questionable

00:56:46.940 research?

00:56:48.420 Yeah.

00:56:48.720 So first thing I want to say about

00:56:50.700 the WHO investigation was that it

00:56:53.460 was extremely useful for the

00:56:55.560 Chinese government to use that

00:56:57.100 and say, look, the World Health

00:56:58.400 Organization says this virus might

00:56:59.900 come in on frozen food.

00:57:01.140 So it didn't start from China.

00:57:02.960 It's not China's fault.

00:57:03.860 It's also a story that they're not

00:57:06.300 just telling the outside world, but

00:57:07.940 they're telling people inside of

00:57:09.300 China.

00:57:10.100 And we know from a lot of emails and

00:57:11.840 actually from early publications in

00:57:13.800 2020 that people inside of China

00:57:16.480 were the first to say maybe this is

00:57:19.020 from that lab in Wuhan that's

00:57:20.420 collecting these bad viruses and

00:57:21.820 doing risky research with them.

00:57:23.900 And so this whole issue of the virus

00:57:25.900 database being taken offline, being

00:57:27.940 made inaccessible, it just makes no

00:57:29.740 sense because these virus hunters

00:57:31.680 have spent more than a decade

00:57:33.960 collecting all these viruses, putting

00:57:35.520 together the database which they

00:57:37.140 launched in 2019, right before the

00:57:39.040 pandemic.

00:57:39.800 They said this database is for other

00:57:42.560 scientists around China and elsewhere

00:57:44.160 to use to understand a lot more

00:57:46.760 emerging.

00:57:47.200 If you'd like to continue listening to

00:57:49.420 this conversation, you'll need to

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - February 20, 2023

#311 — Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab？

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