Wuhan has <1% of the population of China, so this is (order of magnitude) a 100:1 update.
I agree that this is technically correct, but the prior for “escaped specifically from a lab in Wuhan” is also probably ~100 times lower than the prior for “escaped from any biolab in China”, which makes this sentence feel odd to me. I feel like I have reasonable priors for “direct human-to-human transmission” vs. “accidentally released from a lab”, but don’t have good priors for “escaped specifically from a lab in Wuhan”.
I agree that this is technically correct, but the prior for “escaped specifically from a lab in Wuhan” is also probably ~100 times lower than the prior for “escaped from any biolab in China”
I don’t think this is true. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the only biolab in China with a BSL-4 certification, and therefore is probably the only biolab in China which could legally have been studying this class of virus. While the BSL-3 Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing studied SARS in the past and had laboratory escapes, I expect all of that research to have been shut down or moved, given the history, and I expect a review of Chinese publications will not find any studies involving live virus testing outside of WIV. While the existence of one or two more labs in China studying SARS would not be super surprising, the existence of 100 would be extremely surprising, and would be a major scandal in itself.
Woah. That’s an important piece of info. The lab in Wuhan is the only lab in China allowed to deal with this class of virus. That’s very suggestive info indeed.
That’s overstating it. They’re the only BSL-4 lab. Whether BSL-3 labs were allowed to deal with this class of virus, is something that someone should research.
My understanding is that SARS-CoV-1 is generally treated as a BSL-3 pathogen or a BSL-2 pathogen (for routine diagnostics and other relatively safe work) and not BSL-4. At the time of the outbreak, SARS-CoV-2 would have been a random animal coronavirus that hadn’t yet infected humans, so I’d be surprised if it had more stringent requirements.
Your OP currently states: “a lab studying that class of viruses, of which there is currently only one.” If I’m right that you’re not currently confident this is the case, it might be worth adding some kind of caveat or epistemic status flag or something.
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Some evidence:
A 2017 news article in Nature about the Wuhan Institute of Virology suggests China doesn’t require a BSL-4 for SARS-CoV-1. “Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab.”
Non-propagative diagnostic laboratory work including, sequencing, nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) on clinical specimens from patients who are suspected or confirmed to be infected with nCoV, should be conducted adopting practices …. … in the interim, Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) in the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual, 3rd edition remains appropriate until the 4th edition replaces it.
Handling of material with high concentrations of live virus (such as when performing virus propagation, virus isolation or neutralization assays) or large volumes of infectious materials should be performed only by properly trained and competent personnel in laboratories capable of meeting additional essential containment requirements and practices, i.e. BSL-3.
It would be important information if it was true. But is it true?
(SARSr-CoV) makes the BSL-4 list on Wikipedia but coronaviruses are widespread in a lot of species and I can’t find any evidence that they are restricted to BSL-4 labs.
I agree that this is technically correct, but the prior for “escaped specifically from a lab in Wuhan” is also probably ~100 times lower than the prior for “escaped from any biolab in China”, which makes this sentence feel odd to me. I feel like I have reasonable priors for “direct human-to-human transmission” vs. “accidentally released from a lab”, but don’t have good priors for “escaped specifically from a lab in Wuhan”.
I don’t think this is true. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the only biolab in China with a BSL-4 certification, and therefore is probably the only biolab in China which could legally have been studying this class of virus. While the BSL-3 Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing studied SARS in the past and had laboratory escapes, I expect all of that research to have been shut down or moved, given the history, and I expect a review of Chinese publications will not find any studies involving live virus testing outside of WIV. While the existence of one or two more labs in China studying SARS would not be super surprising, the existence of 100 would be extremely surprising, and would be a major scandal in itself.
Woah. That’s an important piece of info. The lab in Wuhan is the only lab in China allowed to deal with this class of virus. That’s very suggestive info indeed.
That’s overstating it. They’re the only BSL-4 lab. Whether BSL-3 labs were allowed to deal with this class of virus, is something that someone should research.
[I’m not an expert.]
My understanding is that SARS-CoV-1 is generally treated as a BSL-3 pathogen or a BSL-2 pathogen (for routine diagnostics and other relatively safe work) and not BSL-4. At the time of the outbreak, SARS-CoV-2 would have been a random animal coronavirus that hadn’t yet infected humans, so I’d be surprised if it had more stringent requirements.
Your OP currently states: “a lab studying that class of viruses, of which there is currently only one.” If I’m right that you’re not currently confident this is the case, it might be worth adding some kind of caveat or epistemic status flag or something.
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Some evidence:
A 2017 news article in Nature about the Wuhan Institute of Virology suggests China doesn’t require a BSL-4 for SARS-CoV-1. “Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab.”
CDC’s current interim biosafety guidelines on working with SARS-CoV-2 recommend BSL-3 or BSL-2.
WHO biosafety guidelines from 2003 recommend BSL-3 or BSL-2 for SARS-CoV-1. I don’t know if these are up to date.
Outdated CDC guidelines recommend BSL-3 or BSL-2 for SARS-CoV-1. Couldn’t very quickly Google anything current.
Do you still think there’s a >80% chance that this was a lab release?
Thank you for the correction.
Did anyone do some research?
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(SARSr-CoV) makes the BSL-4 list on Wikipedia.
But what’s the probability that animal-based coronaviruses (being very widespread in a lot of species) were restricted to BSL-4 labs?
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COVID19 and BSL according to:
W.H.O. Laboratory biosafety guidance related to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
The CDC: Interim Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines for Handling and Processing Specimens Associated with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
It would be important information if it was true. But is it true?
(SARSr-CoV) makes the BSL-4 list on Wikipedia but coronaviruses are widespread in a lot of species and I can’t find any evidence that they are restricted to BSL-4 labs.
Ok, that makes sense to me. I didn’t have much of a prior on the Wuhan lab being much more likely to have been involved in this kind of research.