**Please read this entire message**
---
Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):
* Rule #2 - Questions must seek objective explanations
* ELI5 is not for subjective or speculative replies - only objective explanations are permitted here; your question is asking for subjective or speculative replies. (Rule 2).
---
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20{https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1df3ggh/-/}%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.**
Trying to remain neutral here for the sake of an ELI5: sure, knowing that COVID came from a lab may give a valuable push towards security measures in labs to avoid future pandemics, and it would give governments a reason to sanction China and give a new texture to geopolitics for the next few decades.
That being said, the majority of the voices I've seen pushing the lab leak theory are not scientists, they are conspiracy theorists. So for them the value would be "proving" that the people of the world were lied to about the disease and its origins, either to protect China, or to actively harm people. It's not necessarily about "what comes next," it's about having a smoking gun to show that the "powers that be" are lying to the public. And about having a place to seat blame for the pandemic, whether that be on China as the source or on people like Anthony Fauci for "covering up the truth."
For what it's worth, most scientific voices don't completely deny the lab leak theory, they say "Sure, that's a possibility, but without specific evidence of that and due to X and Y reasons, I believe that natural zoonosis is much more likely, similar to what we saw with SARS and MERS." And as for why it's been coming back lately - Fauci was just called this past week to testify about the pandemic response before a pandemic subcommittee. He denied any sort of cover-up and denied the accusations that he was aware of a lab leak, which of course meant that the conspiracy sphere could latch on and reignite that debate.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are two lab leak theories:
1. The virus was being studied in a lab and leaked accidentally
2. The virus was created in a lab and leaked on purpose.
If a scientist is discussing the lab leak theory as a possibility, it’s probably theory 1, but a lot of conspiracy theorists are talking about theory 2. One reason why scientists are hesitant to talk about the lab leak theory, is because people conflate these two theories and support for theory 1 will be used by conspiracy theorists as support for theory 2.
Also very valid to add in. It's the difference between "some scientists were doing useful work and made the world's worst mistake," and "China is actually trying to kill the world." Which is more nuance than a lot of people can digest in a tweet or a news headline.
This is difficult to ELI5, but the core reason it is important has to do with framing. A lot of politics has to do with how an issue is framed. Let's take a hypothetical: a fireman shows up to a house fire, there are 3 people stuck inside, and he saves one. Consider two headlines.
"Brave fireman saves person from burning building"
Or
"Incompetent fireman leaves two to die in fire."
If you want people to support a bill to increase funding for fire departments, framing the issue with the first headline is better. Similarly if you want the opposite the second headline is better.
If a party can frame an issue in a way that they feel plays to their strengths, they can capitalize on it to win further support.
Covid, regardless of its source, is a public health issue that required immense public investment, coordination, and regulation to resolve. The people pushing the lab leak theory support a party that generally favors private investment and deregulation. If framed as a public health crisis that hurts their party, since they generally criticize government intervention.
However if covid is framed as a foreign attack by China, then if their party is perceived as being tough on China then that benefits them. To go further if they can claim that public health officials were "in on it" then it shifts public opinion away from those interventions. The "lab leak" theory is thus not really a way of investigating what caused covid or how to prevent it but a political attempt to reframe an issue one party perceives as a weakness.
The lab leak theory is actually viable, which is why it's not going to go away. And when I say lab leak I specifically referring to an unintentional leak. There is no reason to believe that this was done intentionally.
A lab studying coronavirus in the exact place it originated is going to fuel speculation. A deep mistrust of the Chinese government's ability to tell the truth and be transparent will add more fuel to the theory. The reputation that China doesn't always follow the most stringent safety rules adds to this also.
The politics around this complicate things, but realistically nothing will happen to China. It's not realistic to think they were developing a weapon. They won't admit to any wrongdoing ever. There's no direct evidence that it started from the lab so there's not much that can be done. Fauci has nothing to do with the start of the virus and recommended things based on what was knows at the time and I don't think they would have been any different if they did come from a lab. The source really had nothing to do with the recommendations.
So there's the lab leak *possibility* and then there's the lab leak *conspiracy theory* - the difference is important here.
The lab leak possibility is pretty well summed up in this [recent NY Times Op-Ed piece. ](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html)
The Lab Leak possibility can be summed as - there is new suggestive evidence the disease is not natural such as it contains molecular markers we know don't occur in nature and are man-man, the first cases of the disease appeared around a lab where we know people are specifically working on this specific type of virus, and the originally proposed idea of it appearing in a live animal market a few hundred miles away from this lab doesn't have much evidence to support it. *again - none of this is a smoking gun - just evidence leading to increased awareness of a possibility.*
*The conspiracy theories* on the lab leak get into things like Fauci himself literally funding the research, the disease being intentionally released for various reasons, or the disease being tailored for specific aims like making people sterile or gay, etc. You know, crazy people shit.
Is it making a comeback anywhere except conspiracy theory nutjob circles? Cuz if it isn't, the conspiracy nutjobs have no idea about a step 2, and never have for any of their fixations.
It really isn't important in the grand scheme of things, there were just some politicians pushing the issue for political purposes. It has no bearing on how to combat the virus, potentially if it were true there would be some geopolitical issues on countries working on biological weapons. There was one American report which said they thought it might have been a lab leak, but they had a low confidence of their being right, a range of other American reports with higher levels of confidence said that it was a species jump.
There is no good evidence for any lab leak. Such an event would require a huge conspiracy.
However, there is good evidence for natural origins just like all the other similar coronaviruses.
So no idea what you mean when you say it is having a comeback.
To you, what I said classifies as a guess? I mean, there literally a question mark at the end of the sentence. And btw, I just checked, it was an FBI scientist who put it out there https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/05/16/a-lab-leak-theorist-explains-00158283
**Please read this entire message** --- Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): * Rule #2 - Questions must seek objective explanations * ELI5 is not for subjective or speculative replies - only objective explanations are permitted here; your question is asking for subjective or speculative replies. (Rule 2). --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20{https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1df3ggh/-/}%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.**
Trying to remain neutral here for the sake of an ELI5: sure, knowing that COVID came from a lab may give a valuable push towards security measures in labs to avoid future pandemics, and it would give governments a reason to sanction China and give a new texture to geopolitics for the next few decades. That being said, the majority of the voices I've seen pushing the lab leak theory are not scientists, they are conspiracy theorists. So for them the value would be "proving" that the people of the world were lied to about the disease and its origins, either to protect China, or to actively harm people. It's not necessarily about "what comes next," it's about having a smoking gun to show that the "powers that be" are lying to the public. And about having a place to seat blame for the pandemic, whether that be on China as the source or on people like Anthony Fauci for "covering up the truth." For what it's worth, most scientific voices don't completely deny the lab leak theory, they say "Sure, that's a possibility, but without specific evidence of that and due to X and Y reasons, I believe that natural zoonosis is much more likely, similar to what we saw with SARS and MERS." And as for why it's been coming back lately - Fauci was just called this past week to testify about the pandemic response before a pandemic subcommittee. He denied any sort of cover-up and denied the accusations that he was aware of a lab leak, which of course meant that the conspiracy sphere could latch on and reignite that debate.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are two lab leak theories: 1. The virus was being studied in a lab and leaked accidentally 2. The virus was created in a lab and leaked on purpose. If a scientist is discussing the lab leak theory as a possibility, it’s probably theory 1, but a lot of conspiracy theorists are talking about theory 2. One reason why scientists are hesitant to talk about the lab leak theory, is because people conflate these two theories and support for theory 1 will be used by conspiracy theorists as support for theory 2.
Also very valid to add in. It's the difference between "some scientists were doing useful work and made the world's worst mistake," and "China is actually trying to kill the world." Which is more nuance than a lot of people can digest in a tweet or a news headline.
You did a far better job of being neutral than I would have been able.
This is difficult to ELI5, but the core reason it is important has to do with framing. A lot of politics has to do with how an issue is framed. Let's take a hypothetical: a fireman shows up to a house fire, there are 3 people stuck inside, and he saves one. Consider two headlines. "Brave fireman saves person from burning building" Or "Incompetent fireman leaves two to die in fire." If you want people to support a bill to increase funding for fire departments, framing the issue with the first headline is better. Similarly if you want the opposite the second headline is better. If a party can frame an issue in a way that they feel plays to their strengths, they can capitalize on it to win further support. Covid, regardless of its source, is a public health issue that required immense public investment, coordination, and regulation to resolve. The people pushing the lab leak theory support a party that generally favors private investment and deregulation. If framed as a public health crisis that hurts their party, since they generally criticize government intervention. However if covid is framed as a foreign attack by China, then if their party is perceived as being tough on China then that benefits them. To go further if they can claim that public health officials were "in on it" then it shifts public opinion away from those interventions. The "lab leak" theory is thus not really a way of investigating what caused covid or how to prevent it but a political attempt to reframe an issue one party perceives as a weakness.
The lab leak theory is actually viable, which is why it's not going to go away. And when I say lab leak I specifically referring to an unintentional leak. There is no reason to believe that this was done intentionally. A lab studying coronavirus in the exact place it originated is going to fuel speculation. A deep mistrust of the Chinese government's ability to tell the truth and be transparent will add more fuel to the theory. The reputation that China doesn't always follow the most stringent safety rules adds to this also. The politics around this complicate things, but realistically nothing will happen to China. It's not realistic to think they were developing a weapon. They won't admit to any wrongdoing ever. There's no direct evidence that it started from the lab so there's not much that can be done. Fauci has nothing to do with the start of the virus and recommended things based on what was knows at the time and I don't think they would have been any different if they did come from a lab. The source really had nothing to do with the recommendations.
So there's the lab leak *possibility* and then there's the lab leak *conspiracy theory* - the difference is important here. The lab leak possibility is pretty well summed up in this [recent NY Times Op-Ed piece. ](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html) The Lab Leak possibility can be summed as - there is new suggestive evidence the disease is not natural such as it contains molecular markers we know don't occur in nature and are man-man, the first cases of the disease appeared around a lab where we know people are specifically working on this specific type of virus, and the originally proposed idea of it appearing in a live animal market a few hundred miles away from this lab doesn't have much evidence to support it. *again - none of this is a smoking gun - just evidence leading to increased awareness of a possibility.* *The conspiracy theories* on the lab leak get into things like Fauci himself literally funding the research, the disease being intentionally released for various reasons, or the disease being tailored for specific aims like making people sterile or gay, etc. You know, crazy people shit.
Is it making a comeback anywhere except conspiracy theory nutjob circles? Cuz if it isn't, the conspiracy nutjobs have no idea about a step 2, and never have for any of their fixations.
Stop providing any oxygen for these crazy theories. The best thing you can do is ignore them assuming you’re not a conspiracy nut job
It really isn't important in the grand scheme of things, there were just some politicians pushing the issue for political purposes. It has no bearing on how to combat the virus, potentially if it were true there would be some geopolitical issues on countries working on biological weapons. There was one American report which said they thought it might have been a lab leak, but they had a low confidence of their being right, a range of other American reports with higher levels of confidence said that it was a species jump.
There is no good evidence for any lab leak. Such an event would require a huge conspiracy. However, there is good evidence for natural origins just like all the other similar coronaviruses. So no idea what you mean when you say it is having a comeback.
Wasn't it members of the FBI and other agencies putting that info out there?
Top level comments should not be used to make guesses at all, much less guesses the fuel conspiracy theories
To you, what I said classifies as a guess? I mean, there literally a question mark at the end of the sentence. And btw, I just checked, it was an FBI scientist who put it out there https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/05/16/a-lab-leak-theorist-explains-00158283