The possibility of a laboratory leak origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been discussed in a flurry of recent articles, including Nicholas Wade’s lengthy piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In the 16 months since SARS-CoV-2 was sequenced, its natural origin has not been clearly identified. Renewed laboratory-leak hypotheses do not contemplate the deliberate release of the virus, but they do raise concerns about the types of research conducted in numerous laboratories around the world, of which the Wuhan Institute of Virology is only one example.
There are two types of eeriness involved. One, the difficulty of leaving mentally unresolved (as it must be, since definitive evidence has not been presented for either a laboratory or natural origin) the origins of the destructive virus. The second is the reality that experiments similar to those conducted in Wuhan have occurred around the world. Has it been only by chance that other similar leaks have not occurred with devastating effects?
