For the lab leak theory to be true, SARS-CoV-2 must have been present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic started. But there’s not a single piece of data suggesting this.
Articles on Wuhan Institute of Virology
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It’s more evidence a lab leak is very unlikely.
The sketchy history of international efforts to control bioweapons suggests that nations will resist cooperative monitoring of gene hacking for medical research.
A large proportion of scientific research on coronaviruses is carried out in countries with no oversight of experiments designed to make pathogens more deadly.
It could lend credibility to other conspiracy theories that also revolve around a laboratory origin for the virus.
Gain-of-function studies make a natural virus more dangerous or transmissible to humans. Could the Wuhan Institute of Virology be the source of SARS-CoV-2?
Top contributors
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Lecturer, Political Theory, University of Reading
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Senior Lecturer in Science and International Security and Co-Director Centre of the Centre for Science & Security Studies, King's College London
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NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Professor of Virology, University of Sydney
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Associate professor, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
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Associate Professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program, George Mason University
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Professor of the Practice of Politics and Crown Family Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University
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Emeritus Professor, infectious disease ecology, Griffith University