What I got wrong about the coronavirus lab leak theory

A mea culpa

]Almost as soon as it became clear that Covid-19 was a disease unlike any we had seen in a very long time — the spring of 2020 — a debate began about where and how the virus had originated.

The two faces of the debate were the two most prominent figures in the country at the time: President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Trump was of the opinion that the virus had emerged as a result of a leak at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

He said that he had a “high degree of confidence” that the virus was the result of a lab leak but refused to explain why. “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that,” he said.

Fauci, along with most of the medical community at that time, believed that the virus had occurred naturally — jumping from species to species to infect humans. Here’s what Fauci told National Geographic in May 2020:

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

Again, this was not a he-said-versus-he-said fight. Trump was — and is — not a doctor or infectious disease expert. And Fauci, as I noted above, was FAR from alone in his assessment.

In the spring of 2020, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this: “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”

And, the U.S.’s intelligence partners in the Five Eyes (the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) felt the same way.

“We think it’s highly unlikely it was an accident,” a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence told CNN in May 2020. “It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction.”

Given the weight of Fauci’s knowledge and the intelligence community’s assessment, I wrote an analysis piece for CNN that put my thumb heavily on that side of the argument.

Here’s what I wrote (in part):

The back-and-forth over where the virus originated – and how – is simply the latest example of how Trump seeks to shape reality to fit his predetermined conclusion. He needs someone to blame for the virus – and “Mother Nature” isn’t cutting it. So he turns to China – and decided that they made this in a lab and, as he said in the Sunday night town hall: “It should have been stopped. It could have been stopped on the spot.”

Is it possible that Trump knows something that the broader intelligence community in the US (and our allies) and the likes of experts like Fauci don’t about where the virus came from? Yes, it is technically possible.

But the bulk of the intelligence gathering and science to this point all seems to point away from that conclusion and to a natural origin for the virus. Against the weight of that evidence, Trump said this when asked to explain his variant view: “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

In other words: Just trust me. Which, well, OK.

Fast forward to this weekend — and the release of a Energy Department study that suggests the lab-leak theory may well have been right all along.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal on the study:

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

Now, before I go any further, a few caveats:

1. The Energy Department says it has “low confidence” in the lab leak theory. That is the lowest level on the analytic confidence scale, meaning, according to this NPR report, that analysts “question the credibility or plausibility of the information, or that they're concerned about the sources.” It’s more than a hunch but way less than total certitude. (The FBI, for what it’s worth, has expressed “moderate confidence” in the lab leak theory.)

2. There are other agencies which have not signed on with the lab leak theory. Again the WSJ: “Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.”

So, it’s fair to say a) that the Energy Department study is a BIG deal and a real shift in the theory of where Covid-19 came from and b) there remains a significant debate about the virus’ origins within the framework of the American bureaucracy.

With ALL that said, when I go back and read what I wrote back in 2020, I feel as though an apology is in order. I was too quick to pick a side. The science and the intelligence weren’t as set in stone as I allowed myself to believe.

Why? Well, some would say it’s a clear case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (not a real disease). That I was so blinded by my views on Trump that I automatically assumed he was in the wrong.

You’ll be surprised to learn I don’t think TDS was responsible for my dismissal of the lab-leak theory — though I will say that Trump’s blaming China for the virus and even suggesting it had been purposely leaked from a lab seemed too convenient by half as he ran for a 2nd term in 2020.

Instead, I think that I trusted too much in the likes of Fauci — especially at a time when so much was unknown about the virus.

The truth was — and is — that we simply still aren’t certain where the virus originated. More skepticism on my part was in order. Lesson learned.