So what do infectious disease researchers and evolutionary biologists say about [arguments for the Wuhan lab leak COVID hypothesis?]
Is it suspicious that no animal has been identified as transmitting the virus to humans?
Outbreak-origin investigations often take years, and some culprits remain unknown. It took 14 years to nail down the origin of the SARS epidemic, which began with a virus in bats that spread to humans, most likely through civets. To date, a complete Ebola virus has never been isolated from an animal in the region where the world’s largest outbreak occurred between 2013 and 2016.
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Is it suspicious that the WIV is in Wuhan?
Virology labs tend to specialize in the viruses around them, says [virologist] Vincent Munster… “Nine out of ten times, when there’s a new outbreak, you’ll find a lab that will be working on these kinds of viruses nearby.”
As Biden’s investigation commences and the WHO considers the next phase in its origin study, pandemic experts are bracing themselves for a long road ahead.
“We want an answer,” says Jason Kindrachuk, a virologist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. “But we may have to keep piecing bits of evidence together as weeks and months and years move forward.”
