Ever since the pandemic began - indeed, even before it began - the question of how we got here, how the virus got here, has been mostly a tantalizing puzzle. Unfortunately, it's also been the minor question on which to hang yet another broad, crazy, and mostly right wing conspiracy. (PS, one fun followup: check out the myth of Tantalus).
The unfolding of the "how did this virus get started in China" story - a fairly simple explanation clouded with pseudoscience, speculation and poor reporting of all sorts - is yet another example of both the general failure to rein in conspiracies hurts our discourse... but also the failure of folks who could stop these things early often miss the signs of conspiracy dead ahead.
Lurking within the story is also some more specialized failings in medical science - a tale in which virologists turn out to be good at identifying virus strains, but it's epidemiologists who figure out how viruses get transmitted. And therein lies the tale of how Wuhan went from merely an early locus point to a tale of magical WooWoo.
Much of the confusion centers on what is, most likely, merely geographic serendipity: Wuhan, in addition to being the first major city to fall to the pandemic, happens to be the major regional center where China developed its central laboratory for studying viruses. That fact, which was noted as the pandemic started to spread, has become the focal point for a wild tale about the possibility of a lab created "super virus" spread either accidentally or deliberately by Chinese officials. If that sounds vaguely like the plot of a Hollywood thriller... that's because, basically, it is (thank you Michael Crichton).
The specifics of the conspiracy theory, as they do, has morphed and shifted, usually as scientists and others have pointed out all the evidence that widely debunks it - there is, for instance, the common sense point that the Chinese government seemed awfully cavalier or ill prepared for a massive virus they, theoretically, launched on their own people. And they seemed awfully determined, for weeks, to hide the enormity, severity, and highly contagious concerns about said virus well after it would have been simply prudent to take far more consequential steps to stop or slow its spread.
Then there's the fact that almost every expert in virology says a) the genetics of the virus suggest two strains, both of which appear to have existed before and well away from Wuhan at the earliest known moments of the outbreak. There's the fact that a virology lab has careful scientific controls to prevent outbreaks, all of which the Wuhan scientists appear to have followed. Then there's the fact that no one can exactly pinpoint the exact strains in the Wuhan lab, even among the scientists who, yes, were ill, in Wuhan, during the early days of the pandemic there.
Then there's the fact that, while the virus strains are known and linked to bat viruses, the exact leap from bat to humans is unclear. This is where epidemiology takes over and points out that the virus most likely jumped from bat to human in rural areas, possibly local markets, where food is scarce and bat consumption is both possible and unsafe. It's also suggested that all of this may have happened, first, in Yunnan province, which is not near Wuhan.
Given all that, the conspiracy has now morphed to... "well, say the lab got a sample and it accidentally infected some rando scientist and then got into the hospital..." interesting, but doesn't track with timing, dates, or the rna of the virus... or, more pointedly, any of the story of China's initial spread.
Still, the conspiracy soldiers on. Articles about the Wuhan Lab started early last year, and have reappeared, with mindless frequency, somewhere between 5 weeks and 2 months apart. Each article leads to another round of tweets, theories and eventual debunking... and then the next one appears and the cycle restarts. Last April, Tom Cotton used elements of the story to vaguely assert that there was something murky, possibly deliberate about China's role in spreading the virus... only to back off and claim "I never said that" when called on it. Trump, of course, asserted the claim repeatedly. The "Wuhan Lab story" is a staple of right wing news at this point, now a cudgel used to suggest that "people were silenced" for even trying to make the claim, and insisting that "it's reasonable to raise a theory." This, too, misses the point of theories: there are lots of theories. Most of them are wrong. Raising them doesn't prove that they have value; nor that they are true.
Or, just consider Megan McArdle, the absolute paragon of contrarians: despite acknowledging, repeatedly, that the vast consensus of scientific assessment is a zoonotic transmission, McArdle asserts that it "hurts science" not to spend endless amounts of time hearing out any and every loony alternative "until we know for sure". What we know is that virologists have identified a virus. And epidemiologists have identified a likely route of transmission of that virus. It's true that, in terms of exact date and time and location, there's still plenty to figure out. It may not surprise you to know that it also took years to nail down the probable causes and routes of transmission of many viruses, including HIV and Ebola. We also spent far too long batting back idiotic rumors and theories about those as well. And why? Not because science fails us, but because we, in fact, refuse to believe science, never mind understand that what "conclusive" means to scientists, and what it is for journalists is actually not that same thing. Which is to say, long before we have conclusive scientific evidence, we can actually say that we know some things.
There will, no doubt, be more Wuhan WooWoo to come - the right has folded this nonsense into its overarching argument about being talked down to by the Intellectual Elite, and that conspiracy will be trotted out, surely, anytime someone yet again mutters darkly that no one really knows if it came from a lab in Wuhan, or a wet market. What's ridiculous in all of this is that we do know, we have known for some time, and while science cannot state the thing with the kind of certainty some people require, batting down this nonsense is nowhere near as hard as some continually rehash it to be. What's exasperating, to me, is that this an easy, just takes a few minutes to debunk, piece of nonsense. And yet, here it is, spinning out of control. And that, even I have to admit, is why Trump and the Big Lie is far more terrifying than it ever ought to be: if we can't nail the easy ones... how will we ever stop the monsters that really have taken on a life of their own?
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