The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: The preponderance of evidence suggests COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

As COVID-19 spread throughout the world in the spring of 2020, most scientists accepted the pandemic origin story as told by China and supported by the WHO: the virus jumped from an animal to a human in a Wuhan wet market. Yet after examining how COVID-19 spread among humans and infected its hosts, a few scientists began to question the role of nature in its creation. They found evidence which pointed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab where pathogenic viruses were being studied, and enhanced, in their capacity to infect people. In the fall of 2019, they argue, one of these research subject viruses infected a lab worker and escaped, spreading to the nearby population and beyond. After many months of being dismissed as a conspiracy theory, a growing number of scientists and government agencies have begun to warm to this hypothesis, calling for further investigations into the Wuhan lab and more transparency from the Chinese government. Some scientists, however, are not persuaded. A number of virologists who studied the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus genome sequence are steadfast in their belief that the virus is nature borne. Not only do its genetic sequences and protein structures mimic a bat virus, the way it infects humans does not suggest any biological engineering. The suggestion that COVID-19 leaked from a lab is a dangerous conspiracy theory not supported by the facts which could affect the study of other coronaviruses and harm our preparedness for future pandemics. Arguing for the motion is Dr. Steven Quay, an anatomic pathology specialist and the author of “Stay Safe: A Physician's Guide to Survive Coronavirus.” Arguing against the motion is Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease expert and clinical instructor of medicine at Columbia University. QUOTES: STEVEN QUAY “The three key components of a zoonosis point to a non-traditional community acquired infection, which leaves me with the conclusion that COVID-19 came from the laboratory.” DANIEL GRIFFIN “We've seen many different infectious diseases go from animals into humans and become devastating. You don't need a mad scientist, unfortunately. In this case, the villain is nature.” Sources: CNN, BBC, Reuters, Tulane University The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail]. To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ The Munk Debates podcast is produced by Antica, Canada's largest private audio production company - https://www.anticaproductions.com/   Executive Producer: Stuart Coxe, CEO Antica Productions Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch Associate Producer: Abhi RahejaBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are options, and that's why we need to take this opportunity seriously. There's no way you can prevent global warming unless China is part of the solution. This is not normal male behavior. This is predatory behavior. We don't know how bad this bug is. We don't know what this bug does. All of that was thrown away in those eight minutes and 46 seconds, and that's the moment that I became an abolitionist. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Welcome to the Monk Debates. On every episode, we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day

to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved. The preponderance of evidence suggests COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. A U.S. intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, that is, a lab there in Wuhan, fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized. That is a whole month before China reported its first case officially of COVID-19. President is asking the U.S. intelligence community to collect and analyze information that could bring the world closer to a definitive conclusion on the origin of the virus. Many of us feel that it is more likely that this is a natural occurrence as has happened with SAWS COVID.

or it goes from an animal reservoir to a human, but we don't know 100% the answer to that. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. Well, as it spread around the world in the spring of 2020, most of the scientific community believed that COVID-19 was nature-born. They asserted that the virus jumped from a bat, most likely, to a human, and then was transferred to populations around the world through a Wuhan-wet-wet-Mort. market. Yet, as new information has come to light, like how the virus spreads among humans and how it specifically infects its hosts, more scientists have begun to question this origin story for COVID-19.

I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped. That's Robert Redfield, the former director of the CDC. Many in the scientific community have begun to suspect a hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan where pathogenic viruses were being studied and possibly enhanced in terms of their ability to infect people. Some, however, are not convinced. So one thing I can tell you is that this is not a bioweapon.

Nobody made this virus in a laboratory. This is a product of nature. That's virologist Robert Gary. He was part of a team of researchers who studied the COVID-19 genome. Along with the World Health Organization, they maintain that the virus's genetic sequences and structures do not necessarily suggest any biological tampering on the part of humans. Furthermore, the belief that COVID-19 leaked from a lab is a dangerous theory, not supported by the facts today. and could well affect how we prepare for future pandemics if we don't understand the risk of the virus originating amongst an animal population.

On this installment of the monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved. The preponderance of evidence suggests that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. Arguing for the motions, Dr. Stephen Quay, he's an anatomic pathology specialist. published author of literally hundreds of scientific peer-reviewed papers, and the author of The Best Cellar, Stay Safe, a physician's Guide to Survive Coronavirus. Arguing against the Motion is Dr. Daniel Griffin,

an infectious disease expert and clinical instructor of medicine at Columbia University in New York. Daniel, Stephen, welcome to the Monk Debates. Oh, thank you for having us. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Such a topical debate today. This is all over the news for the last number of weeks. It has big repercussions for understanding possibly how this pandemic came about, big geopolitical implications. And finally, it's important to have this debate because regardless of what we ultimately settle on, and if we are ultimately able to find out the truth of COVID-19's origins, that understanding will be. be critical to our ability as a species, hopefully to fight off the next pandemic successfully. So our resolution today, simple to the point, be it resolved, the preponderance of evidence

suggests that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. Stephen, you were speaking in favor of the motion. I'm going to put a couple minutes on the clock and turn the program over to you. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. And one of the challenges for a natural origin, excuse me, is that while the first patient is 1,500 kilometers from the nearest ancestral bat in southern China, it's only three kilometers from a refrigerator at the one Institute of Virology. So the natural origin has a location problem. There are six facts that are not in dispute that I think support a lab origin. Fact one is that COVID wasn't smoldering in the community before the pandemic began,

as was observed with previous coronavirus epidemic. So the WHO report on page 25 says that a total of 9,520 stored samples from patients with influenza-like diseases were looked for, SARS-CoV-2 was looked for in those specimens. They were all negative. Previously with SARS and with MERS, the community zero conversion was 1 to 4%. So that's literally a one and a million chance that this was a community infection without any seroconversion. Fact two is, of course, there's no animal host found to date. The Chinese did an incredible effort of testing over 80,000 animals in 31 different provinces without a single animal being found. Viralists early on suggested, quote, the animal host would probably have to have a high population density.

But in fact, having zero out of 80,000 is a prevalence of less than 0.004. Again, with SARS-CoV-1 and with MERS, it was over 90% in the markets when they were final. found. Fact three is a genetic purity, whether it's Dr. Barrett who said that it looks like it came from a single source. Dr. She herself, the Wuhan Institute of Verality, said that the identical sequences probably suggested a single introduction or the WHO that said it was a single point introduction. All of those were quite different from the previous diversity in the genetics of the virus itself. Fact four is that all of the market specimens where the alternative hypothesis is all of the market specimens have mutations that are downstream from the first

ancestral patient in humans, which was at a PLA hospital about three kilometers from the one incident of virology. So it went into the market already in place. It did not come out of the markets. Fact five, of course, is this furin cleavage site. I call it the immaculate insertion where both at the protein level and at the genetic level, it's not seen in any of the subgenre, the the group of viruses that recombination can occur in. And yet it's been induced many times in the laboratory. And the last fact is what I call the pre-adaption trifecta. Whether you look at the whole genome, the spike protein, or the T-R&As that are used,

it really looks pre-adapted, which is something you could generate with serial passage. So if you look at diversity versus singularity, at community acquired versus laboratory acquired, all of the facts seem to stack up in favor of laboratory. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. Fascinating stuff, and we're going to get into all of the science

in this podcast, because as Stephen mentioned, this is as much a debate about a topic as it is an attempt for all of us to become more educated about virology and genetics and all the fascinating things that we're learning as, I guess,

one positive byproduct of this horrible pandemic. Daniel, you're next. You're arguing against our motion, be it resolved, the preponderance of evidence suggests that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. Let's have your opening remarks, please. I'm going to agree with Stephen, with Redyard. It is critical for us to know going forward where this came from, because you know what, if we're going to get hit with another pandemic like this, we need to know where to look,

where to have the radar. But we're also going to go today, Stephen and I, I am certain we're going to dive deep into the science, talking about the furin cleavage site, talking about, if you're in cleavage site, talking about genetic sequences and the like, the furin cleavage site, is that really a smoking gun, which I'm going to say no. I think that that was sort of a lack of understanding of other coronaviruses, other quote-unquote insertion sequences. Again, I think not coming from as deep an understanding of coronaviruses we've developed over

time and the way we've developed it is with people doing really active, important research. So I think this is a critical topic that Stephen and I are going to dive into. And I think where we come out on top is going to be really critical because I'm going to suggest that this is a zoo and noses. I think we're probably going to agree that this originally came from probably a bat, some other animal, perhaps, then got into our population. And if we don't continue to do really rigorous screening and study of the coronaviruses, we won't have the knowledge that we'll need the next time around. So I'll leave it there. And hopefully we can get back and forth on this. Yeah, we sure will. And now's that all. opportunity. So we're going to go to rebuttal. This is an opportunity for both of you to kind of reflect on

each other's opening statements. What do you want to kind of begin to focus and marshal your arguments around in terms of opposing the other person's view? Our resolution today is be it resolved. The preponderance of evidence suggests that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. Stephen, you're arguing in favor of the motion. Let's have your rebuttal of Daniel. Well, I think Daniel has hit, you know, on some of the important things we should discuss in more detail. As Daniel says, it's absolutely critical. There's kind of two different paths we can take if we end up thinking it came from nature or if we end up thinking it came from a laboratory that will help us protect from the next one. And so eventually we do have to get this right. And maybe if we can't find an answer to this, we end up doing what you need to do in both cases.

And I can discuss some of the things I think that that would lead to. Thank you, Stephen. Yeah, critical point. You know, if we don't figure out where this came from, we're in danger of marshalling the wrong set of responses to preventing it happening the next time. So let's make sure that we get into that as the course of this debate goes on. So Daniel, your opportunity here for rebuttal, maybe you could begin the probing here. For those of us in the jury box, you're leading the prosecution, so to speak. Maybe you could pick one aspect of Stephen's argument and we can start drilling down through these different, features. For instance, what is a furon cleavage site? And why should I care about that in terms of

understanding whether this is zoonotic, natural, and origin, or possibly manmade? Okay, certainly. And I think, boy, a year ago probably no one had heard of a furin cleavage site. And now this is becoming a part of our world. So I think Steve and I are on the same page with the idea that there was a virus at some point in an animal that got from animals to humans? And the question is, how did it get from the animals to humans? Was this something that was brought into a lab accidentally, like leaked because, boy, they're working on bats and someone got sick? Or were people messing around with the virus, or they're genetically manipulating it?

And so this will bring us to the concept of a furin cleavage site. There's a spike protein, right? I think all people are getting familiar with that. All our vaccines seem to be trying to target that spike protein. and the spike protein is a really long protein that needs to be cleaved right in the middle between the S1 and the S2. And that cleavage site, that place where the protein is chopped in half, that is a furen cleavage site. And the big question is, was that put there by man or was that put there by nature?

Okay, well, let's go back to Stephen and say, what is the argument that you're marshaling here to say that you believe there's a preponderance of evidence to suggest that it was manmade, that, In effect, maybe even beyond if you're on cleavage site, what is it about this virus that you believe, you know, signifies these telltales of human engineering, not evolution, not natural selection leading to this incredible infectiousness and spread that has been remarkable over the last 14 months? Yeah, well, so we do have to get down into the details a little bit. So the beta coronavirus is called the genus level and then the subgenus level is where recombination occurs. So there's five different subtypes of beta coronaviruses.

SARS-CoV-2 is in one and, for example, MERS is in another, etc. So there's some conflicting evidence, but I think for me the preponderance of the evidence is that you don't see recombination across subgenuses. And that's probably an important fact for coming down on the side of the laboratory because I think there's pretty much agreement that the what's called the sarbicoviruses, which is the subgenus that COVID-2 is in, doesn't have any fur and cleavey sites. So you can't acquire something by Rami recombination that doesn't exist in another virus. Okay, Stephen, just for me, the layperson recombination, what's that? Is that the process through which these viruses evolve? It's the bat's nightmare.

of these, I agree with Daniel, all these come from bats. So it's one bat that has two different viruses inside them at the very same time. And the viruses, because of the way they, they reproduce themselves, they start swapping information. So it's extremely effective in causing natural selection and allowing these viruses to be, you know, to spread broadly and different species, et cetera, et cetera. So, but it requires that, for example, there's a bat in a neighboring subgenus that has a fear in cleavage site, but that virus doesn't infect the same bats that SARS-CoV-2 infected, we think. They're different bat species. So you have to come up with another level of complexity that I just don't see a high probability of. Well, let's have Daniel

come back on that. So there's an idea that there's these subgenuses, the one that COV-Sars 2 emerges from, doesn't have, if I'm getting this right, it doesn't come with if you're on cleavage this one did. So the hypotheses is that someone grafted that, that Furent cleavage site onto the subgenus to model, create artificially what we know is the virus. Actually, I think you did well there. That was good.

That was good. So, yeah, I'll jump in on this. So, yeah, so, you know, the coronavirus is we break them down into, we'll say four groups, right? We're using Greek alphabets. I'm remembering my... My days at University of Miami at the fraternity house, right? So alpha, beta, gamma, delta, right?

So we've got our big groups and, okay, this falls into the beta group. And then it just gets worse, right? Then we start breaking down the beta group into, I'm just going to make it easy. I'm going to say lineage A, B, C, D, E, right? Because you can actually call them Mbeko and Sarebeko and I'm lost already, right, without a cheat sheet. And then so the argument initially was, oh, my gosh, this has got a fear in cleavage site. We don't see that in beta coronavirus. And then several people pointed out, actually, you know what you do?

And then the argument became, well, but you see them only in other subtypes of the beta coronavirus. So, you know, this is in the SARPECO, right? So that's going to be in your lineage B. So we only see it in Cs and Ds and A's, but we don't know many other Bs with it. I think that's a little bit of a stretch, right? We know that viruses, particularly coronavirus, can take their segment of RNA in this case. and then recombine with other viruses. And so it's not a big leap for me to say that we may only know a few of the Sarbeco beta

coronaviruses, but we see fear and cleavage sites throughout the beta coronavirus different subgroups. And so I think that's the quote unquote, what's the original smoking gun was, oh my gosh, what is this fear in cleavage site? It doesn't seem to me a big leap to say, like, well, we just don't know of another one in that group. This couldn't have possibly come from one of the other closely related virus. Hi, Monk podcast listeners. Rudyard Griffith here, your host and moderator. A big thank you to all of our listeners. We've achieved an important milestone. One million downloads in 18 short months since we started the Monk Debates podcast. That's a testament to you, our listeners, appetite for civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. Please write a review about the Monk Debates podcast in your podcast store. Like us on social media,

read the word about civil and substantive debate via this pod. Thanks again for all your support and for helping us achieve this important milestone, a million downloads in 18 months. Now, back to our program. So, Stephen, let's take up another one of your arguments. It was an interesting one. Just how quickly this virus emerged that, you know, the stereological, you know, surveys that were ongoing did not seem to identify this.

virus previously, suddenly it's there, it's in the wet market, it's spreading. Why do you think that is really a key telltale in your view that this did come from a lab? And can you explain that a bit more for us? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the, I think the key takehomes that people should have around a natural zoonosis is when they jump to humans, they sort of do it in two phases. They jump to humans successfully infect a human, the human gets an immunologic response, makes the antibodies, etc. And then it burns out because they don't quite have the necessary mutations to support human to human transfer. So for example, SARS-CoV-1 had only 17% of the aminoase, of the nucleotide changes necessary to support human to human transfer. It happened, you know, approximately a year later.

And in fact, you know, the Chinese virology experts were arguing, everyone was arguing about whether whether there was human to human transfer from the beginning, not being a steep phorologist. I said, well, gosh, the data really looks like human and human transfer. Because I didn't realize that the dogma or the book learning around virology is this two-step process where first you do see it in humans and then you're dealing with individual infections and then the thing gets enough mutations to do human-to-human transfer. So seeing that human-to-human transfer from the beginning actually is also pretty unusual for both MERS and for SARS. To this day, MERS has not really gotten good at supporting, thank goodness, because it's a 30% lethal virus, has not gotten good at supporting human-to-human transfer.

It's still episodic, one camel, one human, one infection, and then it stops. So, Daniel, come back on that. The fact that, you know, we haven't been able to find an animal host for this virus, the extent to which it doesn't, seem that it was widely circulating prior to it becoming, you know, the lethal version of COVID-19 that we unfortunately know all too well. Does that cause any pause for concern on your part? I have to say, Stephen makes an excellent point, and I think a frightening point here. You know, there's a lot of dogma to birology that is being overturned, re-evaluated as we go into this. And one of them was this idea that we would have a warning,

You start to see a few cases, when a virus would jump from one species to another. Initially, it would sort of smolder until, you know, maybe it got that mutation that made it more lethal. What we saw here was a pretty explosive outbreak, right? From the first, you know, I'll say the first few cases we saw in New York City right here. Before we knew it, we had thousands, tens of thousands, thousands dying a day. When this got into the human population, it really took off like wildfire. And the interesting thing I'll say about this is that we go back to the, that Wuhan wet market, and we realized that that was a spreading event. That wasn't the tip of the

iceberg. This has actually had been in the population. We're now thinking as early as October. It may have actually been over and starting to smolder away before it took off in Europe right when we were hearing about the Wuhan seafood market. Stephen, gain of function research. This is a phrase that we've heard a lot the last few weeks. Explain to us what that is, and again, why you think that the Wuhan virology lab is a likely candidate for this type of research to take place, and how, in turn, you think that creates a kind of chain of causality, which increases the likelihood, the probability that this virus, in fact, leaked from a laboratory. Yeah, well, I mean, there are legal definitions of gain of function, you know,

inside of regulations at NIH and that sort of thing. But I think the best way to think about it is to imagine a scientist who wants to change some aspect of a virus. And that aspect can either be its transmissibility or its infectivity, how small a number of viruses you need to infect a particular animal, or maybe what the host is by jumping from one host to another. So any of those experiments can fall under the gain of function. I mean, I think one of the challenges, if we go forward on doing something and regulating this, is really getting that definition right because you can stop a lot of very valuable research if you define the gain of function too strictly.

So I think we should be very cautious. I think the best way to remember you think about it is gain of function is a laboratory person taking a virus and changing it in a way that makes it more effective. Danu, you are hypothesized early on that, you know, we may never know the origins. we may have to do two things at once, assume that we need a better surveillance system of possible host species, but also similarly, we may really have to think about the security of these laboratories because they are all over the world. And let's face it, there are different standards in different countries in terms of their ability to achieve complete safety and security.

So why, Daniel, are you quite confident that the Wuhan lab wasn't, let's say, lacks in its protective measures? That, you know, there are allegations here that it may have been a site where the People's Republic Army of China was conducting military research. It just, I guess as a layperson, I just wonder, am I right to be worried about these labs generally? I mean, maybe it didn't happen this time, but who's to say it won't happen in the future? There's two aspects of when people say, you know, it leaked from the lab, right? So one is the idea that, you know, they're gathering all these animals and they're draining blood from them. They're doing whatever studies they're doing.

They're sequencing virus. And the other side is they were messing around. They were trying to take a virus seeing if they could, you know, make it a little bit more, I don't know, potent, get into certain cells, give it that gain of function that Stephen was mentioning. You know, one of the things that I have to say is that we sort of even before. we learned, as much as we learned from this pandemic, is this was taken seriously, the amount of training that these people go through. And there is, there's a cross-pollination. A lot of these scientists are coming to the U.S. seeing our safety practices. A lot of our scientists are going

there seeing their safety practices. I think this is something we're going to have to continue to do. I mean, all the knowledge that allowed us to have these tremendous vaccines came from brilliant people studying these viruses, going out. But I think all the safety the precautions they've been following. This is something you've got to continue to do. Stephen, what's your view on that? I mean, there's a view here that, you know, for science to progress, you need openness, you need transparency.

You've kind of presented a view in some of your public pronouncements around this, that the Chinese government is not being transparent, and that this, in your view, again, is another piece of evidence that gives you a preponderance of doubt that this virus emerged from a natural host. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? Yeah, and I think you need to take the context, though. I mean, the Chinese Communist Party is a totalitarian regime, and they've been in place for 20 years. So if you go back and look at SARS-CoV-1, which I think everyone agrees is a natural zoonosis, there was a lot of similar governmental steps of, you know, trying to cover it up and not admitting to it. And then finally,

there's this famous April 4th, 2004 pronouncement by the head of the Chinese CDC, where he finally admitted, yes, we weren't forthcoming and we apologize to the world. It was quite remarkable. And so now, I mean, that's lost in the archives of the internet. So I can't make too much out of the fact that they sort of are covering things up. On the other hand, there's this database of 16,000 coronavirus sequences that were collected by the Woon Institute of Rology and were taken offline on September 19, 2019. Originally, they said they did it because of the hacking surrounding the epidemic beginning, and then they realized, well, they took it, you know, it went down in September. And I had the opportunity to ask, you know, Dr. Peter Daschak, you know, is there any chance that while you're

there, could you have gotten that database? And because that's where I think probably the precursors are found. And his answer was not very satisfactory. He said, you know, well, I looked at it and I didn't see anything, but we did not get a copy of it. So, I mean, I think there are a lot of indicia of, you know, consciousness of guilt, as they call it in a courtroom, but it's in the context of a totalitarian government. So I think you can't weigh it properly. He'll stop there. So, Daniel, what is the one argument you'd want to leave listeners with to give them, let's say, the most reassurance that this wasn't, it's the incorrect terminology, but in a sense an own goal, that we didn't create out of our pursuit of knowledge a, you know, a kind of a virologist version of kind of Chernobyl.

What's the one argument that you think people can come away with this debate from to think that that, in fact, is not what's happened? I think, you know, as Steve and I both talked about, there was originally a virus that was out there in an animal, you know, in a lot of these movies, right? people have probably seen, you know, you sort of picture this in their heads. And for a while, we have been reassured, oh, it takes a long time, it gets in a few people, it's molder. What we seem to have just seen is a virus can go from an animal, maybe in October, and within a few months, we could be in a global pandemic. And I think that's the concern here. And, you know, and I worry that we're opportunity costs focus so much on, like, did that animal end up getting its blood drained at this lab, was someone messing around the virus before it made this jump.

I think what we need to take away is that, hey, this is a wake-up call. There are more pandemics out there in nature right now, and unless we put the resources into the science to find them before this happens again, this was just a warning shot over the bow. Well, before you go to closing statements, let's talk about solutions. So, Stephen, in your scenario where this did originate out of elaboration, It is in effect man-made, human-made. What is, what's the policy, you know, response?

How do you begin to deal with this threat? I mean, this is, let me add on to this, my own personal interest here, that, you know, these technologies are becoming increasingly democratized. You know, it's one thing to right now have to confront with the Wuhan labs of this world and are they secure. But, you know, CRISPR, gene editing, these are things that are becoming increasingly. available to more and more people, some of which might not have, you know, humanity's best interests at heart. How do we kind of put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Or are we courting here in a sense of new existential threat? Yeah, you've asked perhaps the most troublesome question for me in the middle of the night. Let me put a fine point on your hypothetical. There's a wonderful paper by about 30, you know, young scientists in Switzerland.

they spent $5,000. They completed in one week this research, and they bragged in their paper that they could have done it in less than a week. And what they did was they took chemicals off the shelf, created big chunks of genetic code, and had baker's yeast, the material that makes sourdough bread. They put the pieces of SARS-Covitu into baker's yeast, and they got it to make live virus.

Okay? So my op-ed on that was something to the tune of, well, would you like some coronavirus with your sourdough, sir? That paper has been downloaded 80,000 times. And my question for the audience is, well, are there, is there anyone on a watch list at some, you know, some country who downloaded that paper? So, yes, the genie is out of the box. I would call what they, what they do in terms of surveillance. I would call that gain of opportunity.

So, you know, you can do gain of function in a laboratory or you can take a virus from a cave in the middle of nowhere in southern China and bring it back to Wuhan. One of my early papers showed that the Line 2 subway, which services the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which services the Hunan market, also services the high-speed rail system throughout China and the international airport. So you can go from Wuhan Institute or the market. You can go downstairs into the subway, and you can not come out again into the world, except you can be in London or Houston or New York or the Middle East. And that concept of putting of putting an institute like this close to that population. I call it the line two COVID conduit,

and I think that probably is part of the accelerator that we saw this spread so quickly. So, Daniel, what's your view? And then we're going to go, I'm going to go before closing, say this is get, you know, how do we do with the zoonotic, the animal threat? But just to finish up this piece, you know, I mean, do these labs need to be, you know,

moved way out of population centers? Do we need to implement much higher levels of security? And to what extent are you concerned by how this technology, you know, is dual use? Like nuclear weapons light up and burn down cities. To what extent should we be worried that these technologies are democratizing, they are dual use, and they represent an existential threat? I have to say, as you bring up, this research is being done at certain institutes. I'm going to argue you need really top-notch people. You need meticulous people.

You need people who concentrate, who focus, who do consistent good work. And if you put these labs out in the middle of nowhere, I'm not sure who wants to raise a family there and send their kids to some school in the middle of nowhere. By the very nature of these, these are going to have to have access to good schools, to cities, to all the other things that people want. And that's why these actually get set up in areas that are exciting places to live, because if you want to track the brightest, best minds, you've got to do that. And I think we can.

and I think we do have a lot of safety measures in place. I think the existential threat is out there in nature. Well, let's go there before we go to those closing arguments. And Daniel, have you talk about that first. If it did emerge from a bat, and again, bats are fascinating in that they have these kind of suppressed immune systems that allow all these different viruses to combine on them and interact with each other in alarming ways, to say the least.

surveillance, I guess, is one thing. Do we need to surveil these animal populations more seriously? What else can we do to begin to take a kind of defensive, preventative approach to this threat if it did emerge zoonotically? Yeah, certainly. I mean, the story that would let me sleep well at night is, oh, this was just a mad scientist in the lab somewhere, you know, took this and unleashed it on the population and, you know, we'll track them down and stop that from happening. But the thing that keeps me up at night is knowing that there are all these viruses, you know, more viruses out there than stars in the sky. And, you know, each with a potential opportunity, you know, varying degrees of jumping across. And how do we stay on top of this? One is we need to invest in science. We need to have, you know, pan-coronavirus and pan-other viral family vaccines ready to go, therapeutics ready to go. And we need much better surveillance of what's out there.

so we know what's out there. If it jumps into the human population, we know as soon as that happens so we can respond much more quickly. This last, you know, 18 months has been devastating and it didn't need to happen and it does not need to happen again. So, Stephen, before we go to closing statements,

what's your confidence in our ability to deal with this threat going forward? I mean, we've seen these remarkable vaccines that were developed at incredible speed, that have phenomenal efficacy. Is there a reason to be hopeful that, just as, let's say, in your hypothesis, is that this virus was created in a laboratory,

well, there are other laboratories out there that are creating the vaccines. And in a sense, we're in an arms race here, but maybe the preponderance of science, of human effort, of energy, and ingenuity is going to be on therapeutics, on vaccines, and humanity will be able to ride out these pandemics in the 21st century,

as humankind pushes up closer and closer against nature. Yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the things I really got wrong was I studied the prior efforts to make vaccines against coronaviruses, both for animals, for companion pets and for humans, and saw something called antibody enhanced infections, basically, which is kind of a nightmare where the very thing that you vaccinate against becomes then a tool that the virus uses for, for infecting a different kind of cell, infecting your immune system. And that made me pause, but in fact, we were quite successful, shockingly successful.

I don't think there's anyone who can confidently say that he predicted, he or she predicted that we would have vaccines as quickly as we did. So that does give me a lot of comfort that we're kind of beginning to become, you know, on the parody. I agree with Daniel that you can't build these things in the middle of the boondocks, as I called it when growing up in Michigan. but one crazy idea that I had was we take something from the 15th and 16th century Italians and set up a dormitories next to your institute.

So you have to quarantine. You have to spend maybe two weeks in a dormitory before you go out into the world if you're working with these at the highest levels. I mean, I think this has brought the attention and the creativity of the virology and the general scientific community. So I think we're going to apply some of these. different tools be in a much better position going forward. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to diminish or avoid. We won't have this again. Well, this has been a terrific debate.

Our resolution today has been, be it resolved, the preponderance of evidence suggests that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory. Daniel, we're going to go to closing statements. You've been arguing against our motion. What final thoughts do you want to leave today's listeners with? We've seen zoonosis. We've seen many different infectious disease go from animals into humans and become devastating. Tuberculosis, HIV, SARS-1, now SARS-CoV-2. You don't need a manned scientist, unfortunately. It would be nice to know that you could just keep track and keep that from happening. Here, here the villain is nature.

And the only way we're going to stay ahead of this is investing in scientists, supporting this work, increasing and realizing that biosecurity is as much national security as the military. Thank you, Daniel. Great summing up. And Stephen, you've been kind enough to take on our resolution today, be it resolved that preponderance of evidence suggests COVID-19 leaked for a lab, arguing in favor of the proposition. So as per debate tradition, we're going to give you the last word.

As a reminder, this zoonosis thing we've been talking about for today involves an animal and a virus and a human. A laboratory inquired of infection is a singularity of each of those different pieces. So one animal from a laboratory, so you're not going to find the animals in nature, which is what we have here. One virus that's pure, so you're going to have a genetically pure virus. It's not going to show diversity. And one human, so you're not going to see practice jumps in archive specimens in the hospital. So the three key components of a zoonosis for me point to a non-traditional community acquired

infection, which I think leaves me with concluding the preponderance is in favor of it coming from the laboratory. Thank you, Stephen. And thank you, Daniel, also. You know, this issue, as you know, has been the subject of what you might only describe as febrile debate in popular media and press over the last number of weeks. So the opportunity to have this civil, substantive, scientifically rich conversation with you both has been just such a privilege. I feel like I've learned something new in each part of this

debate, and that's a testament to, I think, both of your abilities to take these complex ideas and make them understandable to a layperson like myself. So thank you gentlemen, both, for coming on the monk debates today. That was my pleasure. Yeah, mine as well. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participant, Stephen, and Daniel 4, terrific discussion. They certainly gave me a lot to think about. I hope they did the same for you. If you have feedback or reflections on what you've just heard, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Here's a new note from a listener, Robert, with a topic suggestion. Hi, Rudyard. I'm a new listener and am enjoying your podcast. Might I

suggest a topic? Please discuss the current issue here in Canada of how we treat our history. Do we raise residential schools in response to pass wrongs, or do we leave them standing as a reminder of the wrongdoings of a bygone era? Do we tear down statues of renowned Canadians celebrating our past to acknowledge injustices today? Or do we leave them standing, again, as reminders of that past and the need not to repeat it? Thanks, Robert. Interesting suggestion. We are actually working on just such a debate. It's a conversation taking place not just here in Canada, but across much of the Western world.

Stay tuned for that podcast. And a reminder of our Monk Members Only podcast, which comes out every Friday. It's yours to listen free any time as a perk of our basic membership, which is also free. You can access all of that at monkdebates.com forward slash membership. Again, that URL monkdebates.com forward slash membership. The Monk Debates podcast is that special place for civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. Thank you for lending your voice and your ears to our community over a million downloads of this podcast. And counting, we'll catch you at the next debate.

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