US Epidemiologists: Wuhan Lab is Still Doing Risky Research with Coronaviruses

US intelligence agencies remain divided on the origin of COVID, but at this point we’re all aware that, at a minimum, there’s a real possibility the virus that killed millions around the world escaped from a Wuhan lab. 

China has of course denied that possibility but two US epidemiologists have written an opinion piece today warning that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is still involved in potentially dangerous research with bat coronaviruses. In fact, the lab has discovered a new virus which it says could infect humans and could be even more deadly than COVID-19. It’s research was just published in the Journal Cell.

In a series of experiments, the scientists show that this virus, HKU5-CoV-2, can efficiently infect cells of humans and a wide range of other animal cells. The findings raise the possibility that humans and other animals could be infected by this virus. This coronavirus belongs to a subgroup of viruses that are classified alongside the one that causes MERS and that can have fatality rates far higher than that of the virus that caused the Covid pandemic…

The researchers behind the Cell paper began by studying the new virus in ways that do not require growing live virus — like through computer analysis. But after establishing that the virus can probably infect human cells, the researchers performed experiments with the fully infectious virus. They did not conduct these experiments in a BSL-3 or BSL-4 laboratory but in a laboratory described as BSL-2 plus, a designation that is not standardized and not formally recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that we think is insufficient for work with potentially dangerous respiratory viruses.

MERS had a mortality rate of 35% and in the US would be studied in a BSL-3 or higher lab. But in China the research is being done at this BSL-2 plus level which is something that falls short of BSL-3. And this is the problem what worries the authors. We’ve all learned that viruses have no regard for borders but what can the US do if other countries insist on cutting corners in viral research?

Wherever in the world it happens, work with viruses that have the potential to become threats to public health should be restricted to facilities and scientists committed to the highest level of safety. As the leading international public health agency, the World Health Organization should take the lead in rigorously clarifying these standards. But we need other mechanisms to ensure that researchers worldwide follow the rules. Agencies inside and outside government that fund this sort of work should require proof that investigators meet global standards. Scientific journals should have similar standards for the studies they accept.

In other words, one way to prevent cutting corners on safety is to have journals like Cell refuse to publish studies where appropriate safety protocols were not followed. The authors think that obviously did not happen in this case.

One of the authors of this opinion piece is Ralph Baric, the UNC researcher who had long worked with Shi Zhengli, the lead researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite having developed many of the techniques being used at the WIV, Baric mostly remained silent through the pandemic. He remained busy in his lab doing work on vaccines. However, last year he testified behind closed doors to two congressional committees. He told them that he wasn’t sure what the Chinese might have done in Wuhan with his techniques and that he couldn’t rule out the possibility of a lab leak.

For the last three years, as the COVID-19 origins debate has grown increasingly toxic, a small army of global sleuths and Freedom of Information petitioners have taken aim at Baric’s emails and research documents, hoping to uncover information about the true genetic-engineering capabilities of the WIV scientists, the ongoing research they were pursuing, and the viral genome sequences they had in their possession prior to the pandemic.

Through it all, Baric has kept mostly silent—until now. On January 22, he gave a six-hour interview to investigators from two Republican-led House committees: the Oversight and Accountability’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Though the committees have not yet made his testimony public, Vanity Fair has exclusively reviewed his statements. While not formally under oath, Baric was required by federal law to answer truthfully…

While there is little in the 212-page transcript that is likely to markedly shift the debate on how COVID-19 originated, the picture that emerges is of an American scientist who is deeply wary of his Chinese counterparts and has no way of knowing if or how they may have made use of the groundbreaking research techniques he developed.

Perhaps most notably, Baric testified that he had specifically warned Shi Zhengli that the WIV’s critical coronavirus research was being conducted in labs with insufficient biosafety protections. When he urged her to move the work to a more secure biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) lab, he testified that she did not heed his recommendation. Because the WIV continued to perform coronavirus research at what he considers an inappropriately low biosafety level, Baric said of a laboratory accident, “You can’t rule that out…. You just can’t.”

So it’s fair to say this has been Baric’s concern for some time now. He doesn’t believe that the research he or others have undertaken on bat coronaviruses is too dangerous to undertake (something many of his critics would disagree with). But Baric does seem worried that the Chinese in particular aren’t taking the risks of this research seriously enough. Accidents that could unleash the next pandemic are more likely to happen if appropriate safety precautions are not taken and in his view the Chinese are still cutting corners.