The question is, is there going to be review by peers on the recent WHO field study conclusion or should we accept it as is?
why are we so zealous in gatekeeping studies supporting lab origin but we seem to give an easy pass when experts support natural origin, even when it is not through peer-reviewed papers but simple press notes like the recent WHO conclusion (swift conclusion aired only after a week of having a few nice walks in the streets of Wuhan)
This attitude seems reactionary to me, like the classic reaction in favor of the establishment.
To be clear, that's not my attitude. I'm a bit skeptical of the WHO team's objectivity and thoroughness. But on the basis of available facts (and the anti-China bias of many), i'm very doubtful of the claim of artificial origin of Covid.
We have a model for the origin and spread of such viruses. The original SARS seems pretty clearly to have started from a "wet market." Originating in bats, with civet cats as an intermediate host. There was no need for bats to have been in that wet market.
And, of course, MERS appears to have originated in bats, then passed to camels as an intermediate host, before passing to humans.
I see no compelling reason to posit a totally different mechanism for the spread of Covid to humans. Highly similar coronaviruses were obtained from pangolins and bats before this epidemic started. There seems to be no doubt that the bulk of the early human cases were people who worked at the wet market.
This doesn't exonerate China's leadership, it
indicts China's leadership. Tolerating wet markets, where wild animals are in close proximity with other wild animals and humans, was inexcusable. Having suffered from the SARS epidemic, there was no rational reason to tolerate the operation of other, similar, wet markets. Such arrangements are essentially the best possible way to create catastrophic pandemics. This was apparent before the Covid virus arose.
Absent fairly compelling evidence of an artificial origin, we can have confidence that failure to close wet markets is the underlying cause of this global disaster.
Conversely, the Wuhan Institute of Virology's research was more than appropriate. Having suffered through the SARS catastrophe, the Institute would have been derelict in its duties if it weren't focusing squarely on coronaviruses in bats that might potentially spread to humans. Engaging in gain-of-function research was certainly somewhat hazardous, but I don't see that it was clearly unwarranted. Assessing the potential for coronavirus spread to humans is of obvious importance to preventing the next pandemic.
