Some thoughts about that laboratory in Wuhan

A number of apparently well-informed people are now coming to believe that a leakage from a virological laboratory in Wuhan is responsible for the global coronavirus pandemic, and that therefore it did not have a directly zoonotic cause.

There are three reflections which arise from this hypothesis.

First, it is beyond credibility that the leakage was deliberately engineered. If the ruling authorities decided to expose their population to this virus, the basis of their rule would be undermined. Even in the most coercive of states, regimes depend to a large degree on the consent (which may be unwilling) of their populations.

Second, if there had been an accidental leakage in late 2019/early 2020, this is hardly the only laboratory in the world from which such a leak could occur. The implications of this are very significant.

Third, the issue is clouded by the assiduous efforts of conspiracy theorists to mystify the issue. These theories have fallen on fertile ground because very many people do not like to acknowledge that pandemics have an ultimate zoonotic cause, and that human encroachment into animal habitats is encouraging their overspill into human society.