How did the novel coronavirus first made the leap to humans? A senate report hints that the Wuhan lab may have been having trouble in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of COVID-19. Vanity Fair, in partnership with ProPublica, spent five months investigating underlying evidence. Communist official documents have been hiding in plain sight indicating that something might be amiss at the lab. U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP), concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic was “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”

Dispatches archived on the website of the Wuhan Institute of Virology offer some hints about what may have happened. On November 12, 2019, a dispatch by party branch members at the BSL-4 laboratory appeared to reference a biosecurity breach.

“once you have opened the stored test tubes, it is just as if having opened Pandora’s Box. These viruses come without a shadow and leave without a trace. Although [we have] various preventive and protective measures, it is nevertheless necessary for lab personnel to operate very cautiously to avoid operational errors that give rise to dangers. Every time this has happened, the members of the Zhengdian Lab [BSL4] Party Branch have always run to the front line, and they have taken real action to mobilize and motivate other research personnel.”

One of the Wuhan research labs is just 8 miles from the wet market where the virus gained the attention of the world. The Wuhan labs became operational in 2018. Scientists had to report to the Communist party to demonstrate their loyalty and extol the idea that their research is forwarding the goals of the Communist party. The lab had three ongoing problems, no equipment and technology standards, no design and construction teams, and no experience operating or maintaining such an advanced lab.”

The Senate report does not conclude that they know for sure the source of the pandemic outbreak. Lack of transparency from China makes that impossible. In the weeks following the outbreak China did everything in it’s power to deny the virus was circulating and obfuscate the fact that it was airborne and could travel from person to person. The COVID virus may have been circulating as early as November 17, 2019.

On January 1, 2020, Wuhan officials closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and carted away all the animals that were for sale. Stalls were sanitized and an epidemiology team spent days collecting environmental samples. So where was the possible animal host? On February 25, 2022, a team of researchers from China’s CDC published a preprint revealing that of the 457 swabs taken from 18 species of animals in the market, none contained any evidence of the virus. Rather, the virus was found in 73 swabs taken from around the market’s environment, all linked to human infections. Since there is no animal host “smoking gun” human to human transmission is more likely. The case for the lab leak theory remains circumstantial. I remain hopeful that with all the information in this digital age that someday, the truth will come out.