Have viruses escaped a lab before? Yes. Is there evidence that's what happened with the novel coronavirus? Absolutely not.
Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying went on Real Time with Bill Maher on Jan 29, 2021 to promote their conjecture that the coronavirus originated from a lab. Is that right?
The first question we may ask ourselves is: what evidence did Weinstein present? Well, none. He said it looks to him like there is a 90% chance that the coronavirus started in a lab. However, he did not refer to any statistical analyses suggesting how he came up with this number (leading me to suspect the number actually originated from the region where his thighs meet his back). Now, such evidence is possible to come by. If the coronavirus originated in a science lab, you can show that by sequencing the genome of viral samples from the lab’s freezer and showing they match the samples taken from patients early in the pandemic. Strains have escaped labs in the past, and that is how scientists confirmed it. For instance, the 1977 influenza epidemic was caused by a virus that genetically matched a strain from 1950 and mostly infected people aged 26 and younger, who didn’t have immunity since they weren't alive when it circulated in the 1950s. No such genetic evidence for the novel coronavirus has been gathered. No lab is known to have been studying it.
The second question is: is Weinstein an expert on this topic? No. Despite making claims about knowing the origins of the coronavirus, Weinstein is not himself a virologist. Nor is he a geneticist, epidemiologist, or public health expert. Rather, he is a former theoretical evolutionary biologist, who gained notoriety in 2017 when he objected to a Day of Absence at Evergreen State College meant to promote to racial equality. In the aftermath, he and his wife resigned their jobs as professors in exchange for half a million dollars. The mere four articles on Weinstein's ResearchGate page (where scientists list the research papers they’ve published) are about theories of adaptive trade-offs, moral tension, tumor suppression, and aging. Not about viruses.
Weinstein’s lack of expertise was evident throughout the interview. He said humans are unlikely to have evolutionary history with betacoronaviruses, which is wrong. The common cold is caused not only by rhinovirus but also by betacoronaviruses such as coronavirus OC43, and betacoronaviruses have been around for over 10,000 years—likely millions of years. Weinstein also claimed that it is unusual for viruses from animals to be able to both 1) infect a human and then 2) jump to another human. Um, what? If a virus can infect one human, it can infect another. Viruses do this all the time, it's called zoonosis. We know of over 200 types of zoonoses, including Ebola and swine flu. Viruses exist in nature for long periods of time and spill over into humans due to our own activity, such as eating contaminated food (E. coli, salmonella), having close contact with farm animals (bird flu), getting bitten by mammals (rabies) or insects (Zika virus, West Nile), having pets (Toxoplasmosis is why pregnant women shouldn’t scoop cat poop), and going to wet markets. It is very common for viruses from animals to jump to humans; no mad scientist labs required.
The third question to ask from Weinstein’s interview is: where did the novel coronavirus originate from? The answer is, we currently don’t know. Someone telling you that they do know is wrong. Evidence suggests that this coronavirus, which is 96% identical to a virus found in bats, originated in horseshoe bats and was likely passed to humans through an intermediate animal—but we still aren’t sure how. A team of experts is investigating that very question now. And they are intentionally conducting an open-minded investigation, with all scenarios on the table (including the unlikely scenario of escape from a lab). This is how science is done: hypotheses are tested, evidence is collected, and conclusions are drawn. Weinstein has mistakenly skipped to step three. It’s okay to say you don’t know; it’s not okay to say you know (on national television, no less) when you don’t.
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