I'm going to have to read this series in more detail, but thank you for putting out one of the two pieces of journalism I've seen on the issue.

The other one's from Katherine Eban at Vanity Fair - https://www.vanityfair.com/... - which concludes that there's enough evidence that something might have happened, such as researchers getting infected when collecting samples in the wild, but that there's a huge amount of bureaucratic coverup going on from all sides, in addition to the politicians hate-mongering.

read through this..no direct evidence to support the claims made in this article. Almost entirely editorializing and supposition by the writer with no actual data to back any of the claims.

Nonsense. Your prejudice is evident here. You will not accept anything but complete agreement with your misguidd opinion, apparently.

This is a very good and comprehensible summary of the scientific evidence for the natural origins of Sars Cov 2.

My only, very minor comment, is that you should use "hypothesis" to describe all possible origins that were investigated. This is particularly important for thes so-called "Wuhan lab" (i.e. non natural or maybe cultivated one). None of these hypotheses have the status of a theory, with the lab one by far the least probable. The word "theory" has meaning in science, and should not be confused with the word "hypothesis." It means a hypothesis that is consistent with all the observed evidence and that satisfactorily explains these observations without any gaps in understanding or inconsistencies. A good example of a theory is Darwin's theory of evolution or Newton's laws of motion.

What's most astounding to me upon reading this article is that it is scientists who have been absolutely central to our understanding of the virus that causes COVID who are being attacked for supposedly concocting the virus in a lab--which they have demonstrated is impossible!

Maybe Jon Stewart and Jimmy Dore will read and learn from this series before they declare war on China.

At least Stewart seemed to be joking, so who knows what he really thinks, but Dore seems to take the lab leak theory very seriously, and is also utterly oblivious to how the corporate media has shifted towards supporting this theory. Why do you think it's suddenly being talked about so much, Jimmy? Just an accident? And he's far from the only lefty who has exhibited no critical thinking skills about this.

Jimmy Dore is a lefty?

Not sure why you would think otherwise. He supports Medicare For All, is anti-imperialist, supports Julian Assange, supports a living wage and workers' struggles, etc.

Stewart has to know he was playing to a huge audience. I am convinced he was dead serious. I believe Dore is also convinced of the lab leak bs.

Stewart may very well believe it, but my point was it was a comedy sketch, so it's hard to know for sure what his views are. Dore, though a comedian, has been dead serious when he's discussed and either ben neutral toward or supportive of the lab leak bs.

Thank you for publishing this important series. Dr Mateus has done a wonderful job of putting all of the scientific facts in layman's terms without watering them down. That's very difficult to do and he deserves the highest praise for having done so. Equally important is the political contribution towards demolishing the right-wing "lab leak" lie. The US Intelligence Agencies will publish their report this summer. Their "findings" - or, to put it more accurately, their politically motivated fabrications and omissions - will be used in same way as the 2003 lies about WMD that were used to justify the rape of Iraq in the name of "democracy." The only difference this time is that, unlike the Iraqis, the Chinese can actually shoot back. A war between the two major nuclear armed geopolitical powers would likely destroy what is left of human civilization. It is imperative that this article finds its way into the hands of workers before the bourgeois press (I'm using this term instead of corporate press now because the only things they print are the propaganda of the bourgeoisie) unleashes the inevitable torrent of lies and wall-to-wall coverage that will follow the publication of the US spy lies.

For any new readers I think it is worth quoting Trotsky's assessment of WWI, which was published at the beginning of that primal catastrophe. There are significant differences between 1914 and 2021 - the middle class, for instance, is far less numerous and far less powerful. However, the basic social dynamic is similar, albeit at a much higher level.

"The forces of production which capitalism has evolved have outgrown the limits of nation and state. The national state, the present political form, is too narrow for the exploitation of these productive forces. The natural tendency of our economic system, therefore, is to seek to break through the state boundaries. The whole globe, the land and the sea, the surface as well as the interior, has become one economic workshop, the different parts of which are inseparably connected with each other. This work was accomplished by capitalism. But

in accomplishing it the capitalist states were led to struggle for the subjection of the world-embracing economic system to the profit interests of the bourgeoisie of each country. What the politics of imperialism has demonstrated more than anything else is that the old national state that was created in the revolutions and the wars [1] of 1789-1815, 1848-1859, 1864-1866, and 1870 has outlived itself, and is now an intolerable hindrance to economic development.

The present war is at bottom a revolt of the forces of production against the political form of nation and state. It means the collapse of the national state as an independent economic unit.

The nation must continue to exist as a cultural, ideologic and psychological fact, but its economic foundation has been pulled from under its feet. All talk of the present bloody clash being a work of national defence is either hypocrisy or blindness. On the contrary, the real, objective significance of the War is the breakdown of the present national economic centres, and the substitution of a world economy in its stead. But the way the governments propose to solve this problem of imperialism is not through the intelligent, organized cooperation of all of humanity’s producers, but through the exploitation of the world’s economic system by the capitalist class of the victorious country; which country is by this War to be transformed from a Great Power into the World Power.

The War proclaims the downfall of the national state. Yet at the same time it proclaims the downfall of the capitalist system of economy. By means of the national state, capitalism has revolutionized the whole economic system of the world. It has divided the whole earth among the oligarchies of the great powers, around which were grouped the satellites, the small nations, who lived off the rivalry between the great ones. The future development of world economy on the capitalistic basis means a ceaseless struggle for new and ever new fields of capitalist exploitation, which must be obtained from one and the same source, the earth. The economic rivalry under the banner of militarism is accompanied by robbery and destruction which violate the elementary principles of human economy. World production revolts not only against the confusion produced by national and state divisions but also against the capitalist economic organizations, which has now turned into barbarous disorganization and chaos.

The War of 1914 is the most colossal breakdown in history of an economic system destroyed by its own inherent contradictions.

All the historical forces whose task it has been to guide the bourgeois society, to speak in its name and to exploit it, have declared their historical bankruptcy by the War. They defended capitalism as a system of human civilization, and the catastrophe born out of that system is primarily their catastrophe. The first wave of events raised the national governments and armies to unprecedented heights never attained before. For the moment the nations rallied around them. But the more terrible will be the crash of the governments when the people, deafened by the thunder of the cannon, realize the meaning of the events now taking place in all their truth and frightfulness.

The revolutionary reaction of the masses will be all the more powerful the more prodigious the cataclysm which history is now bringing upon them.

Capitalism has created the material conditions of a new Socialist economic system. Imperialism has led the capitalist nations into historic chaos. The War of 1914 shows the way out of this chaos by violently urging the proletariat on to the path of Revolution."

The WSWS has correctly characterized the pandemic as a trigger event in history, akin to WWI. Mutatis mutandis, the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the working class is perhaps even more strained in 2021 than it was in 1914. It is true that the dam has not yet burst; but when it does the social power of the working class, which is immensely more numerous in all countries of the world than it was in 1914, will be a mighty revolutionary force, all the more powerful since it has been suppressed for so long.

Scientists working on COVID analysis function similarly to scientists working on the impact of climate change. Thousands of research articles are published each year about the ecosystem effects of global warming without any questioning whether climate change is proceeding. That battle is long over.
In the April 30, 2021 issue of Science, a team of researchers from several institutions in Boston, MA and Gaithersburg, MD report on the genomic change (the replacement of a single glycine amino acid with aspartic acid) to the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2. This enhances transmission.
The study authors clearly accept this mutation as a natural event. This highlights the gulf between scientific and popular understanding of exceptional adaptability and mutability of organisms.

The right wing political motivation of Wuhan Lab theory has been clearly undermined by the Scientific community.

There is mass anti Chinese racism in the West.... the bourgeois governments are able to put these Wuhan Lab leaks into play because people already have racist ideas about China.

Can you show some surveys or some data showing that "mass Western Chinese racism" exists?

Ever hear the expression Made in China being equated with junk? That's just the tip of the iceberg. How do you think saying China created the virus and then leaked it could have gotten traction?

You can't just make something up and then 10s of millions of people accepting it. It only happens if the people already have a pre existing prejudice of some kind.

I can say a house is haunted and almost everyone believes me for only one reason. Most people already believe in the supernatural.

Not to mention the increase in physical attacks on Asian people in the U.S. And the attackers go for anyone they "think" might be Chinese, even if the person is Japanese or Vietnamese. This reminds me of the attacks on Japanese people by "Buy American" devotees because of Japanese cars a few decades back. Or the attacks on anyone who looked even slightly Middle Eastern after 9/11, including the murder of a Sikh man who was mistaken for a muslim. These prejudices are stoked by the government media deliberately whenever it wants to get people to support another war.

Not to mention the years of anti Japanese racism ... To those people, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese.... makes no difference.

exactly what I was thinking.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, frequently attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
Terrific piece. This needs to be analyzed in the context of an American Empire in terminal economic decline, confronted with exploding deficits and astronomically expensive, looming strategic debacles in Afghanistan (longest war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The rot/putrefaction of late-stage American capitalism has progressed to the point where the very survival of the American Empire requires constant debt monetization (money printing) to prop up financial markets, over-priced real estate, support the Pentagon and ongoing wars. The ruling elite, including corporate media are apoplectic about the growing economic/military power of the China-Russia-Iran axis and viewed as an intolerable obstacle to US global domination. As you point out, the “lab leak” theory is being promoted ‘to shift public opinion and pave the way for American aggression against China, up to and including all-out war.’ Not surprisingly, this is repeated by the paper of record (NYT), WaPo, WSJ and other corporate media outlets. Michael R. Gordon, previously promoting the fiction about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMDs) in Iraq, in his now infamous 2002 piece in NYT is back' pushing the ‘lab leak theory’ in the WSJ. Bottom line- the American ruling elite are promoting ‘pseudo-science’ in a desperate attempt to blame China for creating the virus that causes Covid19 and use this as a casus belli for war, just as WMDs were used for Bush II’s 2003 war on Iraq. Links follow.
Notes
1. How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’ by Tom Stafford 26th October 2016; Link:https://www.bbc.com/future/...
2. See- Costs of War; Link: https://watson.brown.edu/co...
3. Threats And Responses: The Iraqis; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts By Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller Sept. 8, 2002; Link: https://www.nytimes.com/200...
4. Biden Calls for Intelligence Report on Origins of Covid-19- Move comes as scrutiny persists over a possible laboratory leak in Wuhan, China By Michael R Gordon and Alex
Leary WSJ May 27, 2021; Link: https://www.wsj.com/article...

This is the first part of a series you know...

You can tell how slanted the article is by how they avoid mentioning Gain of Function research.Dr Shi when asked if they are making viruses more dangerous replied-No,we are making it easier to jump from species to species-which is making the viruses more dangerous.Shi is your main source on the article?The head of the lab who might of had the leak?
Gain of Function research(which is not even mentioned in the article) are genetically modified viruses,Viruses that are modified to be more contagious.Gain of Function research is funded by both the US and Chineses governments-where is that in the article?
Gain of Function research was stopped in 2014 because of risk only to be reinstated by Fauci in 2017 during Trump chaos(Fauci did not go thru proper channels when reinstated).There is way more evidence pointing towards a lab leak then any other 'theory"
No animal tested for Covid origin has provided the genetic link, they have been looking for over a year.The racist wet market "theory" has been proven to be false.
WSWS writes some very slanted articles, not addressing Gain of Function,genetically modified viruses, the risk of this research, the funding of this research and the NIH(Fauci) control over the science community looking to fund their own research.
Trump not only broke liberal's brains but a few socialist's, too, like the WSWS's.Orange man bad, cannot think objectively.

I see that this a three part series. Maybe you should consider reading the entire article before you jump the gun.

You clearly didn't even read the article. You could have done a simple "ctrl-f" and the word "gain" to see where this is discussed, along with the report linked to Dr Shi where she discusses it as well. And the article also takes up the whole progression of the scientific community's analysis of the virus, protocols by the lab before and during the pandemic, reports that have been issued throughout the pandemic by leading epidimiologists throughout the world - which have nothing in line with the conspiracy theories and their main foundation that "a lack of evidence = evidence". But I assume all of this bores you tears, including the quote that opens the article Dr Shi.

Please read the article more carefully. Gain of function research is mentioned briefly in the discussion of the Science magazine interview with Dr. Shi, which we cite, as well as Dr. Shi's response to those claims, which are concocted by the far right. When you make such assertions, ignoring the actual text of the article--which, by the way, has two more parts!-- your own ability to "think objectively" must be questioned.

In a recent article by Matt Taibbi he gives weight to the Wuhan Lab leak lie. This is the pseudoleft... waiting for the moment they can come in from the cold... and why Trump was correct labelling Biden "Sleepy Joe". But for the wrong reasons.

He is Sleepy Joe because his job is to put the pseudoleft back to sleep.

Taibbi sold out a long time ago.

Taibbi is an overrated 'super commercial' journalist. Right up there with Joe Rogan

It's pretty dam clear that Dr Shi and her staff deserve a medal for their work . They didn't just warn China , they warned the World and the capitalists sat on it because they didn't want to hear it .

That her staff took the measures they did ahead of the Chinese bureaucracy is testament and proof to only one thing .... that they are telling the truth!!

Here is an extensive interview conducted by CGTN in August 2020 with Dr. Shi Zengli, in which the confabulations of Pompeo & Co are directly addressed:

https://youtu.be/bppR6UQNJO0

So Shi Zhengli and the WIV should have no problem cooperating with a forensic examination by a team of qualified international experts, as was suggested by Dr Tedros, to definitively prove that what she is saying is true. She should in fact welcome such an investigation so why not have one?

WHO already did a investigation into WIV and found no evidence to support the lab leak theory. Now to be fair, it’s the US’ turn to open Fort Detrick and comply with an international investigation by submitting blood samples of “Vaping pneumonia”, samples of a mysterious pneumonia occurred in nursing homes near Fort Detrick for the COVID test. Why did US not do that? Any explanation?

The World Military Games were held in Wuhan, China in October 2019...no need to look into USA labs for anything. No need to see what actually killed the people who died of mysterious respiratory infections in the summer of 2019 near Ft Detrick and also in Arizona. Can you imagine if USA interfered in other countries' elections or was the origin of Covid-19? Its much easier to demonize China.

Did you not read this article? The bit about being asked to prove a negative? About how the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused? Is your head filled with concrete? It must be.

So head of the WHO Dr Tedros is a rascist and his head is full of concrete because he wants further investigation into the lab? Also Ralph Baric a leading coronavirus researcher and collaborator of Dr Shi is a racist right wing conspiracy theorist because he wants an investigation? I suggest you muppets actually read the WHO report for yourselves, and give independent thinking a try too. As for the charges of racism what did I say that is racist? This is a disgusting slur levelled by people who have nothing of sunstance to say. I support the opening up of all BSL4 labs worldwide to greater public scrutiny and greater international regulation on research into potential pandemic pathogens. Why does the WSWS oppose this?

Where does the WSWS oppose this?

Fox News could interview Isaac Newton and then drag the anti-gravity guy on stage to be "fair and balanced". Shit for brains....not concrete! (I am a concrete finisher...lol)

Once again on proving a negative: if the lab is "investigated" and no SARS-CoV-2 or precursors are found, the argument will be, the Chinese moved them, or they are in a different, secret lab, to which the investigators do not have access. No part of China would be off limits. We saw this process in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had to accede to more or less endless such probes. The Chinese government, with greater ability to resist international pressure, does not choose to go down this road. Without making any brief for Beijing, there is no reason for them to do so. No prizes for guessing the US response if Russian or Chinese investigators demanded access to Ft. Detrick after the anthrax mailings of 2001, or the Dugway proving grounds in Utah after various disasters there.

Here is how it works bro.... you have to prove that she would be lying....your anti Chinese racism is not a valid reason to suspect her credibility.

Yeah sorry bro that is not how it works. Your racist mind must have got confused. I'll try to keep it real simple for you bro. You don't prove that someone is lying before you investigate them. You investigate them to see if they are lying or not. Got it bro??

FYI, she is an expert... How about you check your anti Chinese racism at the door?

Another excellent & detailed documentation by Dr. Mateus.

Regarding the scientific search for the virus origins, in a major new paper pending publication in Cell, researchers from China & Australia have identified 24 novel bat coronaviruses stemming from a fairly small area in Yunnan province, China, including several close relatives of both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV:

Identification of novel bat coronaviruses sheds light on the evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses [Zhou et al, 2021]

https://www.cell.com/cell/p...

From the Discussion:

“Of particular note was that one of the novel bat coronavirus identified here - RpYN06 - exhibited 94.5% sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome as a whole and in some individual gene regions (ORF1ab, ORF7a, ORF8, N, and ORF10) was the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 identified to date. However, much lower sequence identity in the spike gene, undoubtedly the product of a past recombination event, made it a second closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, next to RaTG13, at the genomic scale. Hence, aside from the spike gene, RpYN06 possessed a genomic backbone that is arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date.


Although several SARS-CoV-2-like viruses have been identified from different wildlife species that display high sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in some genomic regions, none are highly similar (e.g. >95%) to SARS-CoV-2 in the spike gene in terms of both the overall sequence identity and the amino acid residues at critical receptor binding sites (Zhou et al., 2020b; Lam et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2020a; Murakami et al., 2020; Hul et al., 2021; Wacharapluesadee et al., 2021). Indeed, the spike protein sequences of three of the novel coronaviruses described here (RsYN04, RmYN05, and RmYN08) formed an independent lineage separated from known sarbecoviruses by a relatively long branch. In this context, it is interesting that the recently identified bat coronavirus from Thailand carried a three-amino acid-insertion (PVA) at the S1/S2 cleavage site (Wacharapluesadee et al., 2021). Although this motif is different to that seen in SARS-CoV-2 (PRRA) and RmYN02 (PAA), this once again reveals the frequent occurrence of indel events in the spike proteins of naturally sampled betacoronaviruses (Garry et al., 2021; Holmes et al., 2021). Strikingly, RpYN06, RsYN04, RmYN05, and RmYN08 that only possessed one deletion in the RBD were able to bind to hACE2, albeit very weakly. Accordingly, it is possible that there might be another lineage of naturally circulating coronaviruses with spike gene sequences that confer a greater potential to infect humans. Collectively, these results highlight the high and underestimated genetic diversity of sarbecovirus spike proteins, and which likely underpins their adaptive flexibility."

This fresh evidence again demolishes the inflammatory (now withdrawn) claim of Dr. David Baltimore (as channelled through Wade) that the furin cleavage site on SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a unique & unnatural feature constituting a "smoking gun" to prove it was engineered by humans.

It also indicates a fair probability that, upon further study, an even closer relative (than either RaTG13 or RpYN06) to SARS-CoV-2 remains to be discovered in wild bat populations, via which the path of spillover into other species may eventually be identified.

What has happened to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists? A journal founded by scientists to save humanity from nuclear annhiliation promotes China-bashing, thereby feeding a new cold war, which could easily become hot (as in thermonuclear).

I followed a link the author of their article provided and found this:

"It's absolutely horrific that so many scientists and researchers are taking part in what's clearly a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party"

That pretty much tells you where "journalist" NIcholas Wade is coming from. But where is the Bulletin coming from these days???

Working on nuclear matters they are sensitive to risks from experiments turning wrong. They started writing about biological experiments and their risks in 2012 : https://thebulletin.org/202...

The fuss about and "engeneered" Covid must have been too similar with what they've been warning for years to let pass, and that eroded their critical skills ; then you just need the right person to give a gentle push in the desired direction.

I think you are right that they must have seen the supposed "lab escape" as their predictions coming true. But they could have limited themselves to making that connection. Instead they published a tendentious article by an open racist and anti-semite who wrote "First and foremost, Chinese virologists are to blame".

And you should see the comments the article attracted. Reading them, I thought for a moment that I had accidentally wandered onto a fox news webpage.

Let me add, finally, that I'm not faulting the Bulletin for having warned about such dangerous and irresponsible experiments. (For that matter, a much greater range of medical and biological "experiments' are unethical in my opinion.)

I tried to post a comment linking to our article about Wade, but they didn't allow it.

I think I might have found that article already, and it was the basis for my describing him as an antisemite and racist. No other description is possible for an author who writes that Jews have evolved genetically to be adapted to capitalism.

Run by liberals... that are always waiting to side with the fascists when push comes to shove.

Not all players have a strong political makeup like the wsws.

Just remember.... at first something can be build with principles... but once there is traction liberal types move in because they see job opportunities... Or money is brought in and people want to protect their position.

At that point, the organization becomes corrupted.

"At that point, the organization becomes corrupted."

How true. It looks like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has already reached that point.