Covid-19 likely came from a lab. You don't say!

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

The evolution of the zoonotic hypothesis concerning the origin of Covid-19.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Energy has concluded that the virus behind the Covid-19 pandemic, more likely than not, originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, rather than in wet markets many kilometers away. This reporting is far from the last word on the subject because it's based on a leak of classified materials. Right now, we still don't know what the evidence behind this happens to be. But the DOE conclusion does align with a public FBI assessment (also based on classified materials), along with the conclusions of many other scientists.

The only known difference between these two assessments is confidence. The DOE reportedly assesses their conclusion with low confidence; the FBI with moderate confidence. Other government agencies are still backing the idea of zoonotic, or natural transmission, to humans, originating in the wet markets of Wuhan.

The DOE and the FBI may be a little late to the party, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the caution they've used (at least hopefully) to reach their conclusions. I just wish that others had followed suit back in the early days of the pandemic, when you'd be labeled as a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist if you expressed support for anything other than the zoonotic hypothesis. Worse, doing so would get you a one-way ticket on the next career train to Palookaville, and your posts on most social media platforms labeled as disinformation.

Not misinformation, mind you, but disinformation. The latter implying malice. Being accused of Covid disinformation was enough to get your account suspended and you banned for “violations of community standards.” Evidently, it's a violation of community standards to stand up for good science and what turns out to be truth.

It gets flat-out ridiculous in a hurry when unqualified (yet evangelically zealous) censors get the idea that their wisdom exceeds that of actual experts - and use their power as gatekeepers to control discourse. It's absurd, but it's true. If you look up the Dunning-Kruger effect, it's the brain trust at most social media companies waving at you in the photo.

Right now I'm in Facebook jail. My account has been restricted for posting in a thread discussing the dangers of shooting down the Chinese spy balloon over land, that it might have been possible to bring the balloon down safely by shooting it with a bullet, rather than a quarter-million dollar AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. The bullet would have permitting the buoyant gas to escape the balloon slowly, allowing it to descend in a controllable manner. This solution might have allowed us to recover the balloon's payload, intact, before it traversed the entire country - presumably gathering intelligence.

But Facebook evidently considers any use of the terms “bullet” and “shoot” in the same sentence as inciting violence - a violation of community standards. The appeals process was laughable and actually violates Facebook's own standards. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that I've got another three weeks in the slammer.

My plight is of little consequence in the grand scale of things. I'm a retired physicist with a social media following of a only few thousand. I don't depend on approval of my opinions for a living - which happens to be a good thing, because I'd be poor, otherwise.

But others, for whom opinions are livelihood, with credentials, expertise and social media footprints far exceeding my own, have been censored or banned by social media companies when they they challenge the orthodoxy on a variety of important matters. Consider the controversies on not only the origins of Covid, but the efficacy of vaccinations, energy policy, transgender surgery minors or any number of topics which have developed an official, often leftist-driven, narrative.

And yes, way down that list is the utility of using an inexpensive bullet (as opposed to an expensive missile) to bring down a spy balloon from an altitude of 60,000 feet, before it gathers information across the country, without dropping a 600 kilogram kinetic energy bomb in someone's back yard.

Many argued from the get-go that the zoonotic hypothesis of Covid-19 was no better than the idea that it might have originated in a laboratory. Coronaviruses originate in bats, where they are easy to find. But coronavirus, in its natural form, has not been shown to jump directly from bats to humans. An intermediary is required. The intermediate species, in this case, is thought to be a small mammal known as a Pangolin. Pangolins are common in southern China - as are the bats harboring the virus.

The problem is that no evidence of the virus being transmitted from bats to humans, via the Pangolin, has emerged. Nada, zip, zilch. That's a major problem if the hypothesis of zoonotic origin is the hill that you intend to die on. Sans any evidence, the zoonotic hypothesis is no better than the lab-leak hypothesis. Not back in the beginning of the pandemic, and not now.

I get the reasons why many qualified experts would gravitate to the zoonotic hypothesis. There are, for one thing, many examples of zoonotically transmitted viruses. A lot of people who generally know what they are talking about seized on this right away, because of precedent. Group-think is powerful, even among professionals who ought to know better, because no one wants to be the person peddling an unpopular idea that's subsequently shown to be wrong. Enough of that and the research money spigot gets turned to the right.

But in this particular case, many experts did challenge the prevailing paradigm concerning the origins of Covid-19. Personally, I wouldn't have bet more than I could afford to lose on either idea in the beginning. But without an intermediary (or patient zero), the lab-leak hypothesis had then, and has now, at least as much going for it as the zoonotic hypothesis; perhaps even more. It’s been too long in coming, but I’m happy to finally see this acknowledged.

Since China has declined to cooperate in any meaningful way with various investigations into the origins of the Covid pandemic, we are left with gathering data that does not require cooperation from the Chinese authorities. Much of this data is statistical in nature. There have been several models using reasonable data and assumptions which suggest that the lab-leak hypothesis is actually more probable than the zoonotic hypothesis.

Evidently the FBI and DOE agree with this, though on what basis remains to be seen. If their data is different, it makes the case for a lab-leak even more compelling.

I've maintained from the beginning that either of the two major hypotheses concerning the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic could be true. I've also maintained that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that something else could be to blame. Given the dearth of cooperation from authorities where the virus originated, who knows? Yet for espousing this legitimate scientific view, I was among the many who were labeled as sources of Covid disinformation. Not just people who were mistaken, but malicious liars.

Well Facebook, Google, pre-Musk Twitter and mainstream media, in the light of recent revelations, I am extending to you a raised middle digit on my right hand. And in the spirit of reconciliation, you may perch on it.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth