The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? By Nicholas Wade | May 5, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: The political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.
In what follows I will sort through the available scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened, and provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.
The real story By Scott Sumner | May 9, 2021
There’s been a lot of buzz about former NYT journalist Nicholas Wade’s article on the origin of the Covid-19 virus. Much of the discussion revolves around his claim that the virus was probably created in a Chinese lab, and then accidentally infected several researchers who worked there. In fact, the article contains a far more explosive accusation.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory* By Donald G. McNeil Jr. | May 17, 2021
How the Liberal Media Dismissed the Lab-Leak Theory and Smeared Its Supporters
By Jonathan Chait | May 24, 2021
When Nicholson Baker wrote a cover story for New York laying out the evidence that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, the hypothesis was still highly controversial. In the months that have followed, and especially over the last week, it’s gained more and more credibility. A week ago, 18 prominent scientists signed a letter published in Science calling for an open investigation into the virus’s origins. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence believes three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 to require hospitalization, lending even more credence to the possibility of a lab leak.
The hypothesis is far from proven. But this account of the virus’s origins is highly plausible, and at least as well-grounded as the original story of an infection that naturally leapt from a bat to a person.
The media’s lab leak fiasco Matthew Yglesias | May 26, 2021
As I believe I have said before, I spent the month of February 2020 intensely focused on covering the seemingly imminent victory of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary. I dedicated approximately 0% of my journalistic energy to covering what was, in retrospect, the clearly more significant story of a novel coronavirus outbreak starting in Wuhan, China and clearly spreading to other parts of the world.