All the evidence on the Wuhan lab leak, properly organised
Although the world has largely moved on from Covid-19, a lot of trust was destroyed including – unfortunately and worryingly – in science itself. I can think of few things worse for progress than for the public to lose faith in science, which is why I’ve made it something of a personal mission to get to the bottom of the origin of Covid-19. We need to rescue science’s mission of seeking the truth at all costs, even when it comes with an uncomfortable lesson about the dangers of irresponsible experiments.
As readers may know, I began by thinking a lab leak was unlikely, even impossible, as the source of the virus that emerged suddenly in Wuhan at the end of 2019. But during the late spring of 2020 I saw evidence that this hypothesis was in fact quite plausible and needed investigating at the very least. I teamed up with the molecular biologist Alina Chan to write Viral, our book about the search for evidence on both sides of that question. I remained unsure what happened at that stage. Then in the autumn of 2021 more startling evidence emerged to support the lab leak. I now think that is by far the most likely explanation.
