Is “Lab Leak” now proven?
The WSJ ran a widely discussed article a few days ago, and many people have concluded that the Lab Leak hypothesis is now confirmed. I’ve now read the piece, and I don’t see relevant new information in there. The New York Times ran a rebuttal of sorts, with this as one key paragraph:
Recent news reports have unearthed new information about researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology who became sick in 2019. The news reports suggested that one of them could be patient zero. The information about the sick workers was first discovered at the end of the Trump administration. By August 2022, however, intelligence analysts had dismissed the evidence, saying it was not relevant. Intelligence officials determined that the sick workers could not tell them anything about whether a lab leak or natural transmission was more likely. Intelligence agencies view the information about the cases neutrally, arguing that they do not buttress the case for the lab leak or for natural transmission, according to officials briefed on the intelligence.
I read the London Times report, and didn’t see fundamentally new information in there either.
To be clear, I think the chance of Lab Leak being true is reasonably high, due to the accumulation of a lot of circumstantial evidence. But I don’t think the new accounts are anything close to a slam-dunk, nor do they show that any of the researchers were “Patient Zero.” That may well change as further information comes out, but so far it is a mistake to conclude that Lab Leak has been demonstrated to be true.
Addendum: As a side note, I am a little worried by how many people seem to be happy that Lab Leak hypothesis is (supposedly) confirmed. I suppose it would mean you could feel vindicated in a certain kind of contempt for elites, both American and Chinese. But under most normal views, the world where Lab Leak is true is a worse world than the world where Lab Leak is false. So you should instead feel sad and upset if you think it is true, rather than happy or gleeful. If you feel vindicated, it is a sign of a partial cognitive and emotive defect.
Second Addendum: This new national intelligence report doesn’t seem to confirm the Lab Leak take (though it doesn’t refute it either). It pretty definitely downplays the import of the scientists getting sick. Again, it is fine to not trust this report, but still a likely mistake to think new information has been coming out. Here is a good WaPo look at where things stand. Here are comments from Scott Sumner.