SARS-Cov-2 Lab Leak in Taiwan Confirmed

According to Taiwan News, and since picked up by Western media, a (recent) SARS-Cov-2 lab leak has been confirmed in (the Republic of) China.

SARS-Cov-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) concluded on Saturday (Dec. 11) that an assistant researcher was infected with the Delta variant of COVID while experimenting on the virus in a high safety laboratory... Officials are not ruling out the possibility that an error occurred during handling of the mice and that a cross-infection occurred inside the lab.

— Taiwan News

Alina shared the story with us before English-speaking media appeared to have picked up on it.

Taiwan's "Zero Covid" strategy made it easier to identify. Because of background infections, we wouldn't necessarily identify a different SARS2 leak if one had taken place after the pandemic began. SARS1 leaked from a lab multiple times post-outbreak.

Likely covid lab leak, Taiwan BSL3.
🇹🇼 is zero covid; straightforward to track lab origin of SARS2 infections.

Lab worker in their 20s, fully vax'ed (Moderna), symptoms for a week before testing, ~50 people in quarantine h/t @chasewnelson @spectralcodex https://t.co/53ZGotmiZ2

— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) December 9, 2021

Taiwan News was the first to report on the suspected lab infection in English, and later reported that it had been confirmed.

But as Alina also mentioned, Taiwan should be proud of their transparency, and willingness to investigate the accident.

Note that this infection took place in a Biosafety Level 3 lab. The Wuhan Institute of Virology handled bat coronaviruses in a less-cautious BSL2 lab.

But it's a conspiracy theory to suspect it may have leaked from a lab in the PRC in late 2019, right?

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Matt Ridley's latest book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, co-authored with scientist Alina Chan from Harvard and MIT's Broad Institute, is now available—in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.