0:00

Hey

0:01

there, TBD listeners. Before we start

0:03

the show, I wanna let you know about a story coming

0:05

up a little later. It's from one of our partners.

0:08

As seen on EV. Did

0:10

you know that most EV models can travel

0:12

two hundred miles on a fully charged battery

0:15

with some up to five hundred miles when

0:17

fully charged? You can charge them at

0:19

home or at thousands of DC fast

0:21

chargers nationwide. And how about

0:23

this? EVs produce zero tailpipe

0:25

emissions. Talk about living more stateably.

0:29

Head to seen on e v dot

0:31

com to learn more and stick around

0:33

to hear from people who love their EVs.

0:38

Just a quick heads up

0:40

that there is some swearing in this

0:42

episode. Okay. Here's

0:44

the show.

0:49

One of the things I noticed this week when I

0:51

was researching this episode, is that

0:53

very few virologists wanna

0:55

talk publicly about the lab leak theory

0:57

of COVID. So when I

1:00

got Angie Rasmussen on the line on Wednesday

1:02

afternoon, I wanted to know

1:04

why she was different. Why

1:06

are you willing to talk about it? Because

1:09

I shut my mouth off about it in February

1:11

twenty twenty, In

1:15

her day job, Angie studies emerging

1:17

viruses at the vaccine and infectious

1:20

disease organization. At the University

1:22

of Saskatchewan in Canada. In

1:24

her off time, on

1:26

Twitter, she's pretty famously blunt.

1:28

I don't remember what I called Tom Cotton,

1:31

but it was something probably not

1:33

very nice because he was at the

1:35

time saying that you know, for

1:37

sure, this was manufactured and

1:41

it may have been intentionally released.

1:43

It may have been accidentally released, but this

1:45

is the product of, you know, so

1:47

called, gain of function research and possibly

1:50

a bio weapons program. And even

1:52

back then when we knew very, very little,

1:54

that did not seem plausible to me at

1:56

all. It is definitely possible

1:58

to get sick in a lab that handles pathogens.

2:01

Andy is the first person to admit that.

2:03

It's something that I worry about every day right

2:06

behind me is containment lab

2:08

that I work in. Right now, there's

2:10

nobody in there. Oh, yeah. And that's

2:12

actually a tuberculosis lab. But

2:15

I work in the lab right next door on

2:17

the other side of that wall. And maintaining

2:20

proper biosafety protocols is

2:22

something that means a lot to me because

2:25

I literally don't want there to be a lab

2:27

leak in my own community with me

2:29

as the index patient. When I'm working

2:31

with SARS coronavirus two or anything else.

2:34

I think that most virologists who

2:36

are doing this work IT'S SOMETHING

2:39

WE'RE KINELY AWARE OF THE POSSIBBILITY OF

2:41

HAVING HAPPENED. BUT IT'S

2:43

NOT WHAT ANGI THINKS HAPPENED IN THE

2:45

CASE OF COVID. Indeed,

2:48

she co authored a paper published last

2:50

year in Science Magazine, saying

2:52

SARS

2:52

CoV-two, that's the virus' formal

2:54

name. Came from a market in

2:56

Wuhan. She is firmly

2:59

team zoonotic spillover. I'm

3:02

on the so called zoonotic,

3:04

that's one of the names that

3:06

some of the lab leak proponents have

3:08

started for us. Oh, boy. We're

3:10

like the Illuminati except I guess the

3:13

virology and evolutionary biology

3:15

version of it. Some other people

3:17

call it the zoo crew. But

3:19

yes, I think I'm like the the head

3:22

bitch in charge of like the zoonotic.

3:25

But Angie also has an open mind.

3:28

She's willing to blow up her own hypothesis.

3:31

What I wanted to know is whether

3:33

this week's news from the energy department submitting

3:36

the vote in favor of the Labweek theory

3:38

was enough for her. Today

3:40

on the show, why Angie is still

3:43

skeptical. I'm Lizzie O'Leary,

3:45

and you're listening to what TBD. A

3:47

SHOW ABOUT TECHNOLOGY, POWER, AND

3:49

HOW THE FUTURE WILL BE DETERMINED. STICK

3:51

AROUND.

3:57

This podcast is brought to you by SLAIT

3:59

Studios and as seen on

4:01

EV.

4:03

Electric vehicles offer so much

4:05

more than a way to get you from point a to

4:07

point

4:07

b. Just ask any real EV owner.

4:11

The EV that I drive, I'd love the dependability

4:13

and range

4:14

The rebate, I got seven thousand five hundred

4:16

dollars back. Since driving an EV,

4:19

I've found that I've really look forward

4:21

to any reason for getting in

4:23

my

4:23

car. A lot of friends have driven my

4:25

car and loved how it drives. think

4:28

when you get into one and drive

4:29

it, the ease and the fun.

4:32

It speaks for itself honestly. I

4:34

care about sustainability a lot

4:36

and it gives me peace of mind knowing

4:38

that driving a car with zero topline

4:41

emissions means that I'm doing my

4:43

own small

4:43

part. What I love about owning an

4:45

EV is never having to

4:48

go to a gas station.

4:49

It's smooth and quiet.

4:51

I can charge my EV while continuing

4:54

to live my life.

4:55

I actually feel good and happy when I get into

4:58

my EV. From SUVs

5:00

to hatchbacks to trucks. There

5:03

is an EV that's right for just about

5:05

any lifestyle. Electric vehicles

5:07

are worth watching. So head

5:09

to seen on ev dot com to learn

5:12

more. That's seen on ev

5:14

dot com.

5:17

Go to TurboTax and don't do your taxes.

5:20

Meet with an expert who'll do them for you.

5:22

TurboTax experts can relieve you from

5:24

the stress of taxes and file for you

5:26

so you can do not taxes. Show

5:29

your eyes things that are not taxes. Unpack

5:32

a moving box of not taxes. Taste

5:34

not taxes. Sing not taxes

5:37

a lullaby. Hope not taxes

5:39

sleeps through the night. Grab a saddle

5:41

and ride not taxes into the sunset.

5:44

With TurboTax, an expert will do your

5:46

taxes from start to finish, ensuring

5:48

your taxes are done right, guaranteed, so

5:50

you can relax. Feels good to be done with

5:52

your taxes, doesn't it? Come to TurboTax

5:55

and don't do your taxes. Visit TurboTax

5:57

dot com to learn more. Intuit

5:59

TurboTax, full service products

6:01

only, video meeting while expert does

6:03

your taxes required, see guarantee

6:06

details at TurboTax dot com slash

6:08

guarantees.

6:11

Back in twenty twenty one, the National

6:13

Intelligence Council put out report evaluating

6:16

different theories of where COVID nineteen

6:19

came from. In that paper,

6:21

four intelligence agencies thought the origin

6:24

was zoonotic. With low confidence.

6:26

Two were undecided, and

6:28

the FBI with moderate confidence

6:30

thought it came from a lab. This

6:33

week, The Wall Street Journal broke the story

6:35

that the energy department, which was part of

6:37

that original report, had now shifted

6:39

to favor the lab leak theory. With

6:42

low confidence. The DOE

6:44

report is classified, so we can't

6:46

fully evaluate it. But I asked

6:48

Angie what she thought of the journal story

6:50

when she read

6:51

it. It was really light on any

6:53

details. Essentially, that

6:55

reporting said, well, the

6:57

DOE says that,

6:59

you know, with low confidence It's

7:02

a lab leak. And that was it.

7:04

Like, no evidence. These IC

7:06

assessments are from minority of

7:09

the eight different IC intelligence

7:11

community. Yeah, exactly. These

7:14

conclusions that it was a lab leak have

7:16

come now from two, the FBI and the Department

7:18

of Energy. There's four others

7:21

that have said with low confidence

7:23

that they think it's a natural zoonotic

7:25

origin, and then there's two that are

7:27

undecided. So I would

7:29

say that that is a minority of

7:32

the IC agencies that

7:34

have been looking into this while the investigation

7:36

is ongoing. And I understand that,

7:39

you know, intelligence is like

7:41

spy stuff and some of

7:43

that will be classified and not declassified.

7:46

It's really impossible to say how

7:49

confident I should be about any

7:52

of this, how much it would move the needle because

7:54

Again, I can't evaluate that evidence.

7:57

What I do know is that things

7:59

that are of low or even moderate

8:01

confidence has said by

8:03

both the DOE and reiterated last

8:06

night by FBI director Christopher

8:08

Rae. The FBI has for

8:10

quite some time now assessed THAT

8:13

THE ORIGINS OF THE PANDEMIC ARE MOST

8:15

LIKELY A POTENTIAL Lab INCIDENT

8:18

IN WUHAN.

8:19

I DON'T THINK THAT IT'S GOING to

8:21

completely upends

8:23

what our conclusions say and what the bulk

8:25

of the scientific evidence

8:27

shows. One of the reasons I wanted

8:29

to talk to you was that you wrote on

8:31

Twitter that you have an open mind, and

8:33

I wonder if you could put into lay

8:35

language. Like, what what

8:37

it would take for you to be convinced? Yeah.

8:40

Absolutely. So why don't I tell you what's

8:42

convinced me so far? In

8:44

fact, it is zoonotic. We actually

8:46

do have quite a bit of evidence that

8:49

shows that the pandemic started

8:51

at the one in seafood market some

8:53

time probably in late November

8:56

at the latest early December two thousand nineteen.

8:59

And that data is really multiple threads

9:01

of evidence that show that

9:04

not only were their live animals at the wanted

9:06

market, they were there at that

9:08

time, including species that

9:11

we know are susceptible to SARS Coronavirus

9:13

two, including raccoon dogs, including

9:16

minks, including red foxes, We

9:19

also know that when these

9:21

animals were sold at the wine market, and

9:23

we know this actually because one of my co

9:25

authors visited the Wannen

9:28

market in two thousand fourteen, presented

9:31

to him as a place where spillover

9:33

was likely to occur and he

9:35

was able to take pictures of some of these

9:38

same species of animals, including raccoon

9:40

dogs being kept in very close quarters,

9:43

with people with other species of animals.

9:46

So the conditions were right, and

9:48

then we did an analysis of

9:51

all the early cases of SARS

9:53

Coronavirus two or nCoV two thousand

9:55

nineteen at the time, regardless

9:57

of where they were or whether not they had

10:00

any epidemiological link to the market.

10:02

We took those early cases and

10:04

looked at whether or not they were associated with

10:06

the market, whether or not epidemiological investigations

10:09

had linked them to the market somehow. So

10:11

they went there, they worked there, we

10:13

looked at those cases and shown up all the cases

10:16

altogether, were strongly associated

10:18

with the market at the

10:19

center, which you would expect if you're including those

10:21

cases with known links to the market.

10:23

But then when the team looked at

10:25

early cases of COVID, among people

10:27

who didn't work at the market or

10:29

shop at

10:30

it, it turned out they lived nearby.

10:32

It is not a coincidence, essentially,

10:35

that that market is right in middle of

10:37

all those cases that again had

10:39

no link whatsoever to the market. So

10:41

that said that essentially we were on

10:44

the right track The second thing we looked

10:46

at were those animals, and this is

10:48

the part that I contributed to more.

10:51

And that was that We did a

10:53

whole bunch of different detect types of

10:55

detective work as well as looked at the WHO

10:57

mission reports, as well as

10:59

looked at a paper that was published in the summer

11:01

of twenty twenty one that

11:04

was not actually remotely about coronaviruses

11:06

or anything like that. It was looking

11:09

for ticks in

11:11

animals that were being sold at

11:13

live animal markets in Wuhan from two thousand

11:15

seventeen to two thousand nineteen. And

11:18

even though the WHO report,

11:21

mission report said that there were no animal,

11:23

no live animals being sold at one

11:25

in, this paper

11:27

conclusively showed that yeah, consistently

11:30

actually all these different species including

11:32

all these susceptible species were sold

11:34

there from two thousand seventeen into

11:37

late two thousand nineteen when the pandemic

11:39

started until the market was closed. We

11:41

were also able to find a report from the China

11:43

CDC that showed that there were

11:45

environmental samples all over the place.

11:47

That's like a swab from the market. That's

11:50

like a swab from the market. And those

11:52

were positive for SARS too. They were able to

11:54

sequence whole genomes off of them. They

11:56

also tended to cluster

11:58

in the part of the market where not only did they

12:01

sell the animals, there were actually

12:03

five positive environmental samples

12:05

at the same stall where my co author Eddie

12:08

Holmes photographed a raccoon dog

12:10

being clubbed to death in two thousand fourteen.

12:12

So this really indicated to us that

12:15

not only was the live animal trade alive

12:17

and well, but it was occurring in fact

12:19

that at one end market, including a species

12:21

that are susceptible. And then finally,

12:24

another companion paper that I wasn't

12:26

a co author on looked in great

12:28

detail at the phylogenetic analysis,

12:30

meaning it looked at the sequences of all those

12:33

early cases of the

12:35

virus. And what they found was

12:37

that there were actually two separate lineages,

12:39

so essentially two variants. There

12:42

is no way that that could have happened

12:44

as a single spillover event. So

12:47

that means that there basically had to be

12:49

two spillovers at the market probably

12:51

within about two weeks of each

12:53

other. Because a virus wouldn't have had

12:55

time to mutate into two different

12:58

lineages,

12:59

what it all boils down to

13:01

is that there If you try

13:03

to explain this as a lab leak, that

13:05

means that you had to have somebody. And

13:07

we're talking about the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

13:09

It's on the other side of the Yangtze River and

13:12

it's about eight kilometers away. You're

13:14

talking about somebody gets infected with

13:16

lineage B at the Wuhan Institute

13:19

of Vrology. For some reason, it

13:21

goes straight to the Wannen mark it without

13:23

infecting anybody else on the way there.

13:25

And then the next

13:27

week or two later, The

13:29

same exact thing happens independently

13:32

with Linea j. Is it possible?

13:34

Yeah. I mean, a lot of things are possible.

13:37

But isn't it a lot more complicated

13:40

and difficult to explain than just

13:42

a bunch of animals have the virus

13:45

spreading between them? Potentially

13:47

between them and the people that worked with those

13:49

animals, and then it's

13:51

spilled over twice to people who then

13:53

started spreading it to each other because

13:56

that is another thing that makes

13:58

Wuhan unique. It's

14:00

a city. And so if spillover occurs

14:02

in the city, there are going to be many more

14:04

opportunities for that virus to establish

14:07

human to human transmission.

14:09

I'm listening to you and I've

14:11

read your paper as much of it

14:14

as I admittedly an English

14:16

major can understand. But

14:19

I think there are A LOT OF PEOPLE

14:21

AND I'M TALKING ABOUT GOOD FAITH

14:23

PEOPLE HERE WHO CAN SAY, WHOA, WAIT A MINUTE.

14:25

THERE WAS THE CITY WUHAN, THE WUHAN

14:27

INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY WAS THERE. THE WUHAN

14:29

CITY he was there and voila,

14:32

there is a virus there. This

14:36

is the short version of this is the John

14:38

Stewart explanation.

14:39

There's a novel respiratory

14:42

coronavirus overtaking Wuhan,

14:44

China. What do we do? Oh, you

14:46

know who we could ask. The Wuhan

14:49

novel respiratory Coronavirus lab.

14:52

The disease is the same

14:54

name as the lab.

14:57

That's just that's just a little too weird.

14:59

Don't you think? How do you feel about

15:01

that? Like, how do you how do you want people

15:03

who have that occurred

15:05

to them to think about this?

15:08

So I think that we really

15:10

need to think about this in two ways. Right?

15:13

It does seem suspicious because we've all

15:15

heard about all the SARS two work

15:17

that was going on at WIV. And

15:19

we've all heard, you know, that what What are

15:21

the chances? Let's just say, at

15:23

any lab in Wuhan, let's

15:26

say they found the precursor virus. That's

15:28

why it would completely change my calculus.

15:31

And that's why I would revise

15:34

my view to actually

15:36

think that it was a lab leak. And the

15:38

reason for that is, what are the chances?

15:41

What are the chances that a virus would naturally

15:43

emerge on the other side of the

15:45

river when the

15:47

lab had the same virus

15:50

in its collection and just

15:52

happened to be using it. To me,

15:54

that would be a high indication

15:57

of

15:58

a lab acquired infection, but

16:00

that's not what we have evidence

16:02

of. Angie says she's

16:04

also not persuaded by the theory

16:06

that virologist Shushingly, who

16:09

worked at the Wuhan Institute of Neurology,

16:11

had anything to do with the pandemic.

16:14

Sh! Sometimes referred to in COVID discourse

16:16

as the batwoman studies

16:18

coronaviruses. And actually

16:20

in January of twenty twenty, Her

16:22

behavior itself was very inconsistent with

16:24

somebody who's trying to cover up starting the pandemic.

16:27

She went, in December, I think, to

16:29

a NEPA virus conference in Singapore,

16:32

pictures were posted of it on Twitter, not

16:35

in the context of like, oh, a good thing

16:37

I'm out of Wuhan right now. It

16:39

was more like great to see all of

16:41

my international collaborators at

16:43

this hanupovirus meeting.

16:46

Pretty normal scientific stuff.

16:48

In January, a colleague of

16:51

hers who is now in Singapore, Linfawang.

16:54

He's a very famous bat, coronavirologist,

16:57

and virologist. Was visiting

17:00

Wuhan and went

17:02

out to dinner with his whole group.

17:04

They were hanging out,

17:06

taking group photos, not acting

17:08

at all like people who would have just, you

17:11

know, caused a pandemic and we're trying to

17:13

cover it up. I have to say if I knew

17:16

that I had caused a lab acquired

17:18

infection of any kind, and I was trying to

17:20

keep it secret, which I wouldn't do. Probably

17:24

would I be going out into the city that this

17:26

virus was now secretly spreading in

17:28

and, you know, go out for dinner and

17:30

and invite my friends to come visit

17:33

and my colleagues to come visit probably not.

17:35

The final thing is that, that Xi Jinping

17:38

Li has published extensively on

17:41

all of her new coronaviruses that she's found

17:43

and she's isolated them and has continued to do

17:45

so actually throughout the pandemic. So

17:48

I really don't think that

17:50

we are gonna see evidence that

17:52

for whatever

17:53

reason, she was sort of arbitrarily

17:56

covering up. Having

17:58

a SARS2 progenitor when

18:03

we come back. What about the other

18:05

lab in Wuhan?

18:14

It's time to reboot your credit card with

18:16

Apple card. Other credit cards often

18:18

charge annual fees access to perks

18:20

you might not even use or that can come with

18:22

restrictions. Apple card gives you

18:24

valuable benefits without annual fees.

18:27

In fact, there's not a single fee at

18:29

all. Apply now in the wallet

18:31

app on iPhone and start using it

18:33

right away. Subject to credit approval,

18:36

variable APRs for Apple Card

18:38

range from fifth point two four percent

18:40

to twenty six point two four percent based

18:42

on credit worthiness, rates as

18:44

of January first, twenty twenty three.

18:50

It's time to reboot your credit card with

18:52

Applecart. Other credit cards often

18:54

charge annual fees for access to perks

18:56

you might not even use or that can come with

18:58

restrictions. Apple card gives you

19:00

valuable benefits without annual fees.

19:03

In fact, there's not a single fee at all.

19:06

Apply now in the wallet app on iPhone

19:08

and start using it right away. Subject

19:10

to credit approval, variable APRs

19:13

for Apple Card range from fifteen point

19:15

two four percent to twenty six point two

19:17

four percent based on credit worthiness, rates

19:20

as of January first, twenty twenty three.

19:25

Everyone's talking about the rare health benefits

19:28

of macadamia's. Like, did you know they

19:30

have more healthy bath and avocados. It's

19:32

why they're so highly recommended by athletes,

19:34

doctors, and diet experts. Get

19:37

your fill at House of Macadamia's. They

19:39

have a high quality range of delicious bars,

19:42

purified oil, and nuts. So

19:44

indulge in health. Any unsatisfactory

19:46

orders are redeemable, And to get twenty

19:48

percent off your purchase today, visit house

19:51

of macadamia dot com slash

19:53

podcast. What

19:55

Angie comes back to? Is not the

19:57

Wuhan Institute of Neurology or

19:59

the other labs there. The thing

20:02

that she says sets Wuhan apart from

20:04

a number of other similar places is

20:06

a well documented live animal

20:08

trait. And that in itself creates

20:11

a risk and known risk that

20:13

exactly mirrors the risk

20:16

that was recognized at the time of VStar's

20:18

classic epidemic in emergence. The

20:20

other thing is that spillovers actually

20:23

happened pretty frequently, including

20:25

spillovers of SARS related

20:28

back coronaviruses. And

20:30

some models have, you know, we can't ever really

20:32

know the number, but some models have estimated

20:34

that there could be tens of thousands, potentially

20:36

even hundreds of thousands of spillovers of

20:38

these viruses every year, just

20:41

in East and Southeast Asia. Now

20:44

why don't we have hundreds of thousands of pandemics

20:46

every year? I'm very glad that we don't.

20:49

But that's because a lot of the times spillover

20:51

happens and it's dead end. One of

20:53

the reasons it can be a dead end is

20:55

that there's no other person in

20:57

very rural areas to pass that

21:00

virus onto. But in

21:02

a city, in a market,

21:04

where a lot of people are

21:06

indoors together. They're

21:09

in contact with those animals that

21:11

are kept at the market. They're working

21:13

at the market all day. There

21:15

are many, many opportunities for

21:17

a very lucky virus that happens

21:19

to be very good at growing in variety

21:21

of different species, which we now know that SARS

21:23

two is, to

21:26

establish human to human transmission

21:28

chains. In a city of eleven million

21:30

people, that actually argues

21:32

I think strongly for zoonosis because

21:35

you actually would have the opportunity

21:38

in these circumstances to

21:40

establish that human to human transmission

21:43

and gradually spread it throughout Wuhan

21:45

and then throughout the rest of China and

21:47

then throughout the world. I wanted

21:49

to ask you about the

21:51

other research lab, the

21:54

Wuhan CDC. There there's some reporting from

21:56

CNN that the whatever the

21:58

DOE assessment

21:59

is, is that it's based on something about

22:02

that lab. And

22:03

I I saw you tweeting about this

22:05

as well. I wonder what you could tell me

22:08

about that lab. And then why

22:10

you kinda

22:10

went, me? No. Yeah.

22:13

So we never really went no.

22:15

We were like, oh, interesting. This

22:18

lab is, you know, right

22:20

down the street from the wanted market. According

22:23

to the WHO report,

22:26

they they moved there on December second.

22:28

Now when you move a laboratory, you

22:31

know, you're not moving over your whole lab

22:33

in the morning and then just decide to

22:35

like whip up some virus cultures in the

22:37

afternoon. Usually,

22:39

it's a lot more work than that to actually

22:41

move an entire laboratory. Could

22:44

there have been an accident or an issue

22:46

in the course of moving? Maybe but

22:49

it's not clear that they

22:51

actually had relevant samples. So there

22:53

was one guy at the Wuhan CDC

22:56

who had collaborated with some people, and

22:58

that's because he was mainly involved in

23:01

doing field work with bats. This

23:03

is doctor Cheung. Yeah, this is

23:05

Dr. Tiyan. So he,

23:08

you know, has been very involved

23:10

in all this, quote unquote, adventurous work

23:13

going into caves, trapping bats,

23:15

taking samples from bats, sometimes

23:17

taking samples from other animals too.

23:20

This is important work, virus discovery

23:22

work, But importantly, this guy

23:24

was not actually so

23:27

much of a virologist. He wasn't

23:29

bringing bats back to

23:31

the Wuhan CDC But in all of

23:33

his papers, anytime there was any sort

23:35

of virus isolation, it was

23:37

clearly done somewhere else where they

23:39

had an appropriate

23:41

containment lab and also probably

23:44

where they had expertise in growing viruses,

23:46

because despite what you might think and

23:48

how some people portray this, viral

23:51

genomic sequence is not a recipe.

23:53

You can't just, like, sort of, like,

23:55

do something like on CSI where you, like, type

23:58

in a sequence and then, you know, your little

24:00

virus printer is gonna spit out like

24:02

a custom virus. It doesn't work

24:04

like that, and it's actually technically pretty difficult.

24:07

Whether you're talking about isolating a virus

24:09

from a tissue sample that you've

24:11

collected or a fecal sample that you've collected,

24:14

that's even more difficult. To

24:17

making a reverse genetic system based

24:19

on a sequence. Now it can all be

24:21

done, but Is it something

24:23

that some guy who's mostly famous

24:25

for going out and catching bats is doing

24:28

in his spare time? Probably

24:31

not. And it's pretty clear from looking

24:33

at his work that he wasn't

24:35

doing any kind of, you know, virus

24:38

isolation much less cloning

24:40

viruses and making chimeric viruses

24:42

and doing all this, you know, gain of

24:44

functioning stuff that a lot

24:46

of people have implicated in this. And

24:49

again, we don't know what the DOE's

24:51

evidence was, but it doesn't explain

24:54

how you would then have two spill overs,

24:56

two weeks apart. And if Dr.

24:58

Tion was the only one who was working on

25:00

those bats and those things at the

25:02

WCDC, then what?

25:05

Did he get infected with lineage b?

25:07

Go have lunch at the wannin market? And

25:09

then two weeks later, got infected with lineage

25:11

a I mean, I suppose that it's

25:13

possible, but I just don't

25:16

think that that's a very likely explanation.

25:19

Given the limits of

25:22

of

25:22

what China is willing to share,

25:26

can we ever know? There's

25:28

a lot of speculation about China

25:31

covering things up and not telling the

25:33

whole truth and being secretive and

25:36

that seems to be kind of across the board,

25:38

how the Chinese government operates, about

25:41

a lot of things. You know, that doesn't

25:43

mean that we cannot trust any the evidence

25:45

we have from China. That

25:47

also doesn't mean that we'll never find the answer.

25:50

But one thing that's very clear to me

25:52

and that I don't think people really appreciate

25:55

is that in the course of talking about

25:57

these deleted databases and all these

25:59

hypothetical things China has done

26:01

to cover up a lab origin, people

26:04

are overlooking the things that we all

26:06

know that they've done that potentially

26:08

would cover up a market origin. And

26:10

that is going to make it more quote

26:12

for us to conclusively demonstrate that

26:14

that's how it started. For example,

26:17

January first, twenty twenty. Wanted

26:20

market. The world found out the day before

26:23

about this new viral

26:25

pneumonia that was spreading. And

26:27

January first, wanna market

26:29

shut down, all animals removed,

26:31

property disinfected, animals

26:34

probably called, animals

26:37

not mentioned, and

26:40

the market has not reopened. So

26:42

it's not selling animals, it's not

26:44

selling meat, it's not selling produce, it's not

26:46

selling seafood, it's not selling

26:48

shit. And on top

26:51

of that, Michael's standard has

26:54

reported fairly extensively. As

26:56

extensively as he could when he was still in

26:58

China that in the

27:00

farms, in Hubei province, All

27:03

of those farms have been shut down,

27:05

and they also have not reopened. So

27:08

not only can we not get samples

27:10

if they weren't taken from the animals that

27:12

were actually at one end. We

27:15

can't even go investigate

27:17

the sources of or the potential

27:19

sources for some of these

27:21

samples. Angie says it would

27:23

be extremely helpful to compare any

27:25

animal samples. If they existed, to

27:27

the environmental ones gathered in

27:29

cages and processing areas

27:31

at one end market. You

27:33

know, we have this the sequence data.

27:35

Now, I'll just explain very, very quickly

27:38

that when you sequence stuff, it's

27:40

agnostic about what species you're sequencing.

27:43

So you get all these little fragments

27:46

of sequence called reads,

27:48

and there's millions of these. And so

27:50

you use bioinformatics to

27:53

assemble these into intact sequences.

27:57

The paper that was published by the China CDC

27:59

led by George Gau on February

28:01

twenty five, twenty twenty two, the

28:03

day before our preprint came out,

28:06

showed that there was linear j

28:08

at the market as well as linear j, which

28:10

was new for us even though we predicted

28:13

it, and actually compelled us

28:15

to get our preprints out the next day

28:17

because we thought it was important. That

28:19

paper concluded that

28:21

there was a stronger association between

28:24

the viral sequence and

28:26

these other sequencing reads in those

28:28

samples from humans. But what it

28:30

didn't show was what other

28:32

species had sequencing reads in

28:34

there. And there were a lot of unmatched

28:37

reads. And basically,

28:40

if we have the raw data for those sequences,

28:43

we could find out what

28:46

species those unmapped reads were

28:48

mapping to And so you can

28:50

see

28:50

that's a raccoon dog -- Correct. --

28:52

of whatever. Exactly. The

28:55

key is that that raw

28:57

data also hasn't been shared, which

28:59

is why those pay that paper probably

29:02

hasn't been published. Because in order to publish

29:04

in a reputable journal, you are

29:06

required to deposit your raw data into

29:09

a public database or repository. So

29:12

there is some data that might give

29:15

us some more insight about this. But

29:17

because there was a concerted effort

29:20

I think to not look in the animals,

29:22

when it was clear that that this was

29:25

associated with a market where live animals

29:27

were sold, there was a real effort,

29:29

I think, to prevent that

29:31

data from ever being collected and

29:34

to prevent access to anything that

29:36

would really implicate the live animal

29:39

trade. Because again, that's been

29:41

recognized as a risk for the last twenty

29:43

years ever since SARS emerged

29:45

and

29:46

it's little embarrassing that

29:49

that this happens despite the

29:51

fact that there were, you know, there was a lot of

29:53

effort put into trying to prevent that from happening.

29:57

How much does solving

30:00

this riddle, pinpointing the

30:03

origin matter? Like, might

30:07

we be better off if sort

30:09

of societally people could say like, okay, this

30:11

could have come from you know,

30:14

zoonotic transfer, it could have come from some type

30:16

of lab

30:16

accident. Let's focus on the future,

30:19

or is that like a a false dichotomy?

30:21

I think it's really we need to do both

30:23

things. Right? Like, I think it is important

30:26

to find out the origin with a

30:28

a strong level of confidence. But

30:30

we don't necessarily have to

30:33

to get started on trying

30:35

to think about future pandemic prevention

30:38

and preparedness and response efforts. But

30:40

the reason why it's important to know how this pandemic

30:42

started is we don't want to waste a lot

30:44

of time doing even more stuff to prevent

30:47

lab leaks When the reality is,

30:49

the most dangerous gain of function

30:51

lab in the world is run by

30:53

mother nature who is doing gain

30:55

of function research through evolution

30:58

with countless

31:00

viruses, many more than we

31:02

know. Definitely SARS coronavirus

31:04

three is out there. Definitely MERS coronavirus

31:07

two is out there. There

31:09

may even be other types of coronaviruses

31:12

that we've never seen emerge into the human population.

31:15

That could potentially be pandemic pathogens.

31:18

So if we are spending

31:21

all of our time worrying about the hypothetical

31:23

threat, of a lab acquired

31:26

infection or a lab leak, then

31:28

we're not devoting the same resources and

31:30

the resources that we should be devoting to

31:33

these very real problems that

31:35

pose tremendous threats to us,

31:37

potentially existential threats,

31:40

Do you know how much worse the SARS two pandemic

31:42

would have been if it had been caused

31:44

by a more transmissible SARS one?

31:47

SARS one is a ten percent case fatality

31:49

rate. If it had been caused by MERS, I'm

31:52

not exaggerating when I'm saying that's potentially

31:54

an existential threat to our civilization. MERS

31:58

has a case fatality rate of about thirty

32:00

percent to thirty five percent Can you imagine

32:02

it one out of every three people who

32:04

got COVID died from it? That's

32:07

something I think that people have kind

32:09

of not thought about. They're thinking about, you

32:11

know, the millions who have died from COVID, which

32:13

is obviously terrible. But they're

32:15

not thinking about how it could have been many millions

32:17

more if it had been a different

32:20

virus, which may well

32:22

be out there. I don't think we should ever assumed

32:24

that as viruses get more transmissible or

32:26

more human adapted, they become attenuated because

32:29

we have a lot of counter examples of them not

32:31

doing that. Has Ebola gotten?

32:34

Milder over the last

32:36

fifty years since it emerged, it has

32:38

not. So

32:40

I think that we really do need to

32:42

be thinking about origins, not

32:44

just in like helping us identify these

32:47

threats, but also helping us

32:49

focus our efforts to

32:51

to mitigate these threats going forward.

32:54

And to me, there's a really

32:56

disproportionate use of resources if

32:58

you're providing this sort of false equivalence

33:01

that either the lab or

33:03

the market are equally possible, because

33:06

then you're going to bond to them as

33:08

if they're equally dangerous and they're

33:10

not.

33:13

Andy Rasmussen, I can't thank

33:15

you enough for walking

33:18

through all of this with me and for your time. Thank

33:20

you so much for having me on here, Lizzie. Andy

33:25

Rasmussen is a virologist at the Vaccine

33:28

and Infectious Disease Organization at

33:30

the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

33:33

And that is it for our show today. What

33:35

TBD is produced by Evan Campbell?

33:38

Our show is edited by Shannon Palace.

33:40

Alisha Montgomery is vice president of

33:42

audio for sleep. TBD is

33:44

part of the larger WhatNEXT family and were

33:46

also part of future tense a partnership

33:49

with Slate, Arizona State University, and

33:51

New America. And if you're a fan

33:53

of the show, I have a request for you,

33:55

become a Slate plus member. Just

33:58

head on over to sleep dot com slash what

34:00

next plus to sign

34:01

up. I will be back on Sunday

34:03

with another episode. I'm Lizzie O'Leary.

34:05

Thanks for thing.