The COVID-19 lab-leak theory recently got yet another piece of circumstantial evidence to add to the growing pile, lending more scientific weight to it than to the natural-origin theory. This latest bit of significant information comes from a recently released MIT Technology Review of COVID origin data. The review noted that the Wuhan Institute of Virology labs had a troubling history of biosafety issues and that “there are still concerns that the biosafety standards in the Wuhan lab might not have been rigorous enough to prevent research activities from causing the pandemic.”

The report further observed that “some of the Wuhan institute’s behavior has certainly raised red flags,” and “instead of tackling the publicity crisis directly, China has exacerbated mistrust by running obfuscation and disinformation campaigns of its own.”

None of these observations are new or surprising, but this does serve to reiterate that concerns regarding WIV’s lab standards did exist. What is especially interesting is this gem of an admission: “One year after the WHO’s visit to Wuhan, the disease detectives have yet to find the guilty animal or other indisputable evidence of natural origins.”

More than 80,000 animals in China have been tested and not one has been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. This is highly unusual. Either scientists have yet to stumble across the animal responsible for the natural origin of COVID, or its origin is most likely tied to one of the WIV labs that just happened to be studying coronaviruses and also just happened to be engaged in gain-of-function research.

For reference, with the SARS outbreak of 2003, it was a matter of just a few months before scientists had traced the origin of that bat-related coronavirus to a serious of caves in China’s Yunnan province. The direct animal culprit between bat and human transmission was the cat-like rodent palm civet, which is consumed in China. Animals infected with SARS were identified, and the natural origin connection was confirmed.

To date, such a natural connection for COVID has not been found — only asserted. As University of California, Berkeley professor Richard Muller, a leading proponent of the lab-leak theory, contends, “When you evaluate the two theories, it is so overwhelmingly in favor of the lab leak that everything else is just incidental evidence about the details of what happened.”

Muller also notes: “They tested an unprecedented 80,000 animals covering 209 species, including wild, domestic, and market animals … and they found no infections in animals. … They found nothing. But instead of drawing a scientific conclusion from that, the World Health Organization came up with excuses.”

Muller and Dr. Steven Quay, who have been working together on researching the origin of COVID, also argue that SARS-CoV-2 is too perfect to have naturally evolved to infect humans: “Such early optimization is unprecedented, and it suggests a long period of adaptation that predated its public spread. Science knows of only one way that could be achieved: simulated natural evolution, growing the virus on human cells until the optimum is achieved.”

That COVID suddenly appeared in Wuhan without any direct animal connection is yet another bit of evidence, however circumstantial it may be, pointing to the WIV labs as the most likely source.