The deletion of the bat coronavirus database at Wuhan institute of virology prior to the pandemic is an undisputed and central fact. Your quotation marks do nothing to diminish this fact alone's inherent demand that Occam's razor be inverted.
Spell out specifically what you think a deleted database proves and the sequence of events that would lead to it being deleted.
The timeline of this stuff is extremely important to disproving some of the sillier claims. This database that's a "Central Fact" was deleted several months before the first case of a virus with an unmitigated R0 of >5.
They would have to know there was a novel coronavirus spreading for months before the rest of the world. Aside from the rest of the obvious ways everyone else would know, DNA phylogeny of all known cases disproves this.
Sure, but Occam’s is a logical shortcut, not a method of scientific conclusion. I personally suspect a lab leak origin, but I can’t say I have conclusive evidence. I just find it extremely likely based on a myriad of circumstantial evidence, and a lack of any conclusive evidence of natural origin.
I find it extremely unlikely given what I know about biology and how viruses and epidemiology works.
Lack of transparency in China is no proof, it's standard operating procedure. They'll try to CYA even if they didn't do anything wrong, maybe especially then.
The simplest and most probable way the pandemic started really is the way pandemics usually start: by a pathogen jumping from an animal species to Humans, without passing through a lab whatsoever.
Like rzz3, I am suspicious of a lab leak (but reserve judgement). You say the lab leak is unlikely, but do you know better than the WHO? From the article:
> In this we are in line with the US government, the G7, the World Health Organisation and the general public, all of whom are on record as saying that they think a leak from a Wuhan virology lab is a strong possibility that deserves to be investigated. The latest WHO report two weeks ago confirms this, saying that it is important “to evaluate the possibility of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population through a laboratory incident”.
China's behavior is suspicious, but as you point out there could be any number of reasons for this. However, that's hardly a basis for exoneration. In either case, China's behavior is surely a confounding factor in understanding what actually happened.
There's also a difference between leaking a novel virus and one that has been circulating. Also the accusation of "gain of function" experiments making the virus more dangerous.
Of course it is not extremely unlikely that a virus escapes from a lab. To me it seems very unlikely that this particular virus first escaped from this lab and especially that it wasn't a threat before being collected.
The main reason to suspect that gain of function research on bat-borne sarbecoviruses was taking place at the WIV is that we know that gain of function research on bat-borne sarbecoviruses was taking place at the WIV.
> Also the accusation of "gain of function" experiments making the virus more dangerous.
Is that a complete sentence? What are you saying? Are you dismissing out of hand the possibility that gain of function research was being done at the time of the first discovery of SARS-COV-2 on the same type of viruses?
You don't need to "dismiss the possibility" to say it's unlikely. There's really zero evidence this kind of research has been done a) at all in this lab b) on this Virus c) the virus leaked. Nor is it even clear the virus originated in Wuhan at all.
"Lab leak hypothesis" sometimes includes the "gain of function" theme and sometimes it doesn't. I find neither very likely, neither has any evidence to back it up. I still think the zoonotic hypothesis is the most likely truth, if not for the fact that we know this has happened so often in history. Any other hypothesis needs extraordinarily good evidence to convince me otherwise.
It does sound like you have a framework which may admit the possibility of lab-leak if specific evidence is found, in this case probably contemporaneous documentation of exactly that happening. I actually think we are largely in agreement then, I think though that it is very difficult to apply statistics here to gauge the likelihood of one or another event being true in the absence of much stronger evidence in certain directions. I'm only wedging my toes in the door of a not closed case, making no claim either way.
From my perspective there is a large weight on the case that the "lab leak hypothesis" is not true. To present it as equally likely is very misleading.
The deletion of the bat coronavirus database at Wuhan institute of virology prior to the pandemic is an undisputed and central fact. Your quotation marks do nothing to diminish this fact alone's inherent demand that Occam's razor be inverted.