More than a year since the outbreak of Covid-19, the steps by which the SARS-CoV-2 came to exist and entered the human population are as yet unknown. While there are very few people who claim that the virus was the product of genetic engineering, the absence of the clear “missing link” between similar animal coronaviruses and the Covid-19 virus leaves open the possibility that the virus escaped from a research facility, such as the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology. To add context to the absence of a clear animal linkage to the virus, look back to the SARS outbreak of 2003. It took over a decade to find the animal origin of the virus; in 2017, virologist Shi Zhenglii of the Wuhan Institute of Virology tracked down the source to horseshoe bats in Yunnan.
The most repeated claims that the BSL-4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had known security lapses relies on a State Department cable from Jan. 19, 2018: “the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment facility.” This is an undeniably scary quote, but let’s put it in context. It is explaining why the facility, constructed at an expense of $44 million over 11 years, and completed in early 2015, was still conducting relatively little research. The cable explained that this was due to “unclear guidelines on virus access and a lack of trained talent.” In other words, the cable was explaining why the laboratory was not seeing much use: there was a “serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians.”
A full reading of the State Department cable shows that its meaning is not captured by the short excerpt that has been quoted repeatedly.
