The SARS-CoV-2 virus, like the closely related SARS-CoV virus, is clearly a member of a clade of viruses found in bats. In particular, several species of horseshoe bats, which are found across much of Asia, have been identified as the wild reservoir of SARS virus. It’s highly likely that some group of these same bats also represents the original home of SARS-CoV-2.

We know that SARS made the transition from bats to humans using the cat-like masked palm civet as an intermediate host. In 2003, SARS spread to at least 8,096 people across 29 countries. Of those who caught the disease, 774 died. That high rate of deaths made SARS a feared disease that continues to get a large amount of study at sites around the globe—including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which happens to be in the same city where the first cases of COVID-19 were identified.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a great reluctance among researchers and health officials to make a connection between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I’ve reflected that reluctance forcefully and often. There have been, and still are, a number of very good reasons to resist the idea that there is a connection between the researchers at the lab and the outbreak of COVID-19 in the same region, not the least of which is how those putting forward this idea keep leaping ahead to the idea that COVID-19 was both intentionally made and intentionally released.

But considering a number of recent media reports, it’s definitely worth revisiting just why the allegations against the lab have been challenged, and whether it’s time to reevaluate.

The first known cases of what would eventually be named COVID-19 were identified at a hospital in Wuhan in early December 2019. That’s when Dr. Li Wenliang (who later died from the disease) was among a group of doctors who tried to sound the alarm about seven cases of respiratory disease in their hospital that were symptomatically similar to SARS. Though both local and regional officials made an effort to suppress this information, the threat was recognized and a tissue sample was sent to a testing laboratory on Dec. 24, which confirmed that this was, in fact, a new coronavirus. The local health authorities made an official announcement on Dec. 31, with 27 known cases. (There were 41 on Jan. 1.)

The World Health Organization (WHO) was brought in, and on Jan. 5, 2020, they issued a caution about a pneumonia of unknown cause. By the end of the month, the number of known cases was approaching 10,000, WHO had declared a Public Health Emergency, and the first cases outside China had been identified in Italy.

Early on, suspicion about the source of the outbreak fell on the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a so-called “wet market” that occasionally sold wild meats that had in the past included bats and pangolins, both of which had potentially been connected to the virus. However, it’s been clear for about a year that while that market was likely the scene of an early superspreader event, it’s unlikely to be the point at which the virus first made the jump into humans. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientists came to this conclusion in May 2020 after taking samples at the market.

Almost from the outset, fingers were also being pointed at the WIV. However, there were several reasons to doubt the motivation of those pointing fingers.

For one thing, the only evidence seemed to be that the lab was in the same city as those initial cases. The site of the lab is not accidental. It’s located there because the region has previously been the site of several emerging diseases, which includes several waves of bird flu connected with markets in the area. In 2019, there was even concern about a local surge in cases of plague. 

Neither Wenliang nor any of the others who treated the first known cases drew any such connection, though several early patients were connected to the seafood market, which helped draw attention to that site as a possible origin.

Despite a well-publicized set of dispatches in which U.S. researchers working with the lab warned against potential safety hazards, the lab was a high security facility in which researchers regularly worked with highly contagious viruses, including SARS. 

In fact, the major focus of those dispatches was that the Wuhan lab wanted additional assistance from U.S. researchers. And the conclusion of the cables was a recommendation that the lab be given that assistance because the work on bat coronaviruses was “important but also dangerous.”

However, no extra assistance was provided. Instead, the lab rapidly became the center of conspiracy theories that contended COVID-19 was an engineered bioweapon. Not only was no U.S. assistance provided, but existing funding and cooperation was cut off. Trump also made statements that the funding that supported joint U.S.-China study of emerging diseases had been made by Obama, and he was moving quickly to cut it off.

By March, WHO officials worked together with Chinese officials and produced a report giving four possible sources of the SARS-CoV-2 virus:

Bats through another animal (very likely)
Direct spread from bats to humans (likely)
Cold-chain food products (possible but not likely)
Laboratory leak (extremely unlikely)

But there were some serious complaints that Chinese officials had not been completely forthcoming with documents and other evidence during this evaluation, or on a follow-up visit to the WIV over the summer.

There is absolutely no evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was in any way engineered, or that there was anything intentional about its release. In fact, at this point thousands of scientists have studied the 30,000 bases of the virus’ RNA extensively, and none of them has identified anything that at all resembles the kind of fingerprints that might result from use of something similar to CRISPR, or any other technological intervention. 

SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that almost undoubtedly has made its home in a species of horseshoe bat for a long, long time. Sometime within the last two years, it made its way to humans—possibly using poor, beleaguered pangolins as an intermediate host, and then a variant appeared that allowed the disease to transmit effectively person to person.

Is there a chance that the virus might have first entered the human population in Wuhan by escaping from the virology lab? Of course there is.

However, there is something to note about the recent report that originated in The Wall Street Journal. This is how that article begins:

This is what the unsourced “fact sheet” says:

There are a number of reasons to be suspicious of this information besides the fact that it seems to conveniently support claims about the lab without providing a single name of anyone infected, or anyone in intelligence who stands behind this report. 

According to a member of the WHO team who traveled to Wuhan and reviewed the available data, “There were occasional illnesses because that’s normal. There was nothing that stood out. Maybe one or two. It’s certainly not a big, big thing.”

One of the things that seems most unusual about this is the claim that three people working in a highly secure level five virology lab would suddenly become sick with an unknown illness, and even though the lab was aware of this, all three were sent to the hospital, apparently with no precautions, instead of being isolated. 

But the biggest reason to doubt the fact sheet is that it once again directly implies that SARS-CoV-2 was the result of a deliberate research done on the wild-type virus to make it more infectious in people. This is an accusation of nothing less than that China was involved—is involved—in bioengineering coronaviruses as weapons. Also, this fact sheet is not a new evaluation, but it was issued on Jan. 15. That it seems to corroborate every accusation Republicans have made is highly suspiciously.

Also, far from being exclusive to The Wall Street Journal, it appears the sheet has been sitting on the web page of the U.S. embassy in Georgia for over four months … which doesn’t exactly seem like the way intelligence information usually gets distributed.

Is the WIV still a possible source for the initial release of SARS-CoV-2 virus within that city? It is. Is the evidence released by The Wall Street Journal compelling? It’s not. 

There’s no apparent reason to believe anything in this “fact sheet” represents a “fact.”

But this is another very good reason why any internal reports on the origin of COVID-19—both current and previous evaluations—should be released.