Corona Daily 079: Chinese Lab Leak Theory: Part Four

Smallpox, Ebola, plague, SARS are dangerous viruses, and for scientists to conduct research on them, the lab must have a specified BioSafety Level (BSL). The levels of containment range from BSL-1, the lowest to BSL-4, the highest. The world has fewer than fifty BSL-4 labs; China has two, the Wuhan Institute of Virology being one.

All BSL-4 researchers must change clothes at entry, shower upon exiting, and decontaminate all the materials used during experiments. The lab itself must be in a separate building or wing, with its own air filtration and decontamination systems.

Working in astronaut suits, the researchers can’t have coffee or feel hungry. The negative air flow dehydrates and exhausts them. Working longer than three hours at a stretch is difficult. Wearing that suit and having a runny nose is a nightmare. If you sneeze, you can’t clean your face shield.

Equipment breaking is another problem. The lab must turn everything off, remove the equipment from the BSL-4 lab, and decontaminate it before fixing it. The Wuhan lab cost $44 million, and was the first Chinese lab approved as BSL-4 in 2015.

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Such precautions are important, because pathogens manage to escape frequently. The last smallpox death was a result of a lab leak in the UK in 1978. The original SARS escaped twice, once in Singapore, once in Taiwan. In 2004, SARS leaked out of a Beijing lab twice. In December 2019, around the same time as covid-19 started, more than 100 students at two agricultural research centers in Lanzhou in Northwest China were infected with brucellosis, a bacteria transmitted by livestock.

American diplomats who visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2018 specifically mentioned coronavirus and the pandemic risk. In February 2020, China issued new rules requiring labs to increase their biosafety, suggesting there was something to improve.

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In February 2020, Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, two Chinese scientists published a paper “the possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus”.

They screened the area around the seafood market and found two labs conducting research on coronavirus. Wuhan CDC lab was within 280 meters from the market. In one study, the lab researchers had captured 605 bats. The expert who collected them was aware of the danger of proximity to bats. He quarantined for 14 days each on two occasions, once when a bat attacked him, and once when the bat peed on him.

Surgery was performed on the caged animals, tissue samples were collected for analysis. Tissue samples and contaminated trash were a source of pathogens. This center was next to the Union hospital, where the first group of doctors was infected.

In summary, the researchers say the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Not surprisingly, the Xiaos were asked to withdraw the study. (Fortunately, the paper is still available). “The speculation was based on published papers and media and not supported by direct proofs.” Said Botao Xiao in an interview.

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The Xiao paper was withdrawn under government pressure before it was peer-reviewed. But the WHO report in March 2021 is an official document. In projecting the hypothesis, the report says: …although rare, laboratory accidents do happen… humans could become infected in laboratories with limited biosafety, poor laboratory management practice or following negligence.

This is followed by an interesting paragraph: “The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2 December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. Such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.”

If you have moved houses, you know what a nightmare moving is. And to move a bio-safe facility handling 605 bats, it may be more so. This is the same lab the Chinese researchers mention in their paper. For reasons best known to WHO, the biosafety level of the Wuhan CDC is not mentioned in the report. It is BSL-2.

Shi Zhengli may have spoken the truth saying nothing leaked from her institute. What about the other Wuhan labs, particularly the one that moved on 2 December 2019?

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Based on the data available so far, I will sum the case up tomorrow.

Ravi