President Trump says that the United States is investigating if the Coronavirus came from a Chinese viral lab.

President Donald Trump during his daily press briefing. Reuters. 

President Trump says that the United States is investigating if the Coronavirus came from a Chinese viral lab. Reuters. No source for the virus that is currently raging globally has been found. Reports have determined that it was of natural origin and was not a bioweapon but China has released little information about the early days of the outbreak. It is possible that the pandemic originated from a Chinese lab and some intelligence reports seem to confirm that. The Chinese research would have been legitimate in nature but safety standards may have been lax that someone there could have caught the virus and brought it to the Wuhan wet market where the virus first became widespread. The US government, including President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

My Comment:

I don't have the time to give this post the effort it deserves but I did want to discuss this accusation. The origin of the virus is a mystery. The most accepted theory is that it originated in the Huanan Seafood wet market in Wuhan. Presumably and infected bat infected one of the animals for sale there and then transferred to a human. 

That is still a very real possibility and there is some evidence that the endangered Pangolin, which is sold at these markets, may have been an intermediate host. This is plausible but I do wonder how a bat would have infected anything there since they aren't sold there and I'm not even sure if they are living in the area. However, health standards at wet markets are non-existent and I certainly could see it happening.

However a lab release is just as likely. There is nothing about that theory that is not plausible. This isn't like the bioweapon theory that doesn't hold up upon examination. A bioweapon release makes zero sense as governments don't want bioweapons that spread uncontrollably and it's stupid to develop one that you don't have a vaccine for. The best bioweapons are things like Anthrax and Tularemia that are deadly but don't spread easily. 

But an accidental lab release? It makes sense. Since the SARS outbreak, the Chinese government had an obvious and legitimate interest in studying Coronaviruses. They represent a major threat and finding a cure or preventing an outbreak would have been a major coup for the Chinese government. It would also prevent the loss of face an outbreak that originated in China. 

And I doubt that the security at these labs was very good. There are so many ways that people can be infected at one of these labs. They could mishandle an infected animal, have an accident with a test tube or simply screw up with their PPE. And I am also partial to the idea that the lab workers brought an infected animal to the wet market to be slaughtered. That would explain why the outbreak was centered there.

However, this is just a theory and it's very possible that we won't ever know the truth. China has already lost a lot of face and respect due to this outbreak and is unlikely to tell us if the virus was due to a lab screw up. They have a dubious relationship with the truth in the best of times but if the have a huge motivation to not be honest. If it was a lab release than China would have to accept more blame for this outbreak than they are already going to get. Right now the wet market theory means that the outbreak is nothing but a natural tragedy. If it was from their lab though, it's all on them and I don't think they will ever admit to it.