Covid-19: How a group of amateur investigators pushed the lab-leak theory

The theory that the Covid-19 pandemic may have originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, was a hypothesis that unleashed passionate reactions. However, on January 25, The New York Times revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) now considers the theory to be the most likely. A conclusion that must be highly satisfying for DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating Covid-19), an informal group of some 20 researchers who have campaigned tirelessly to push that theory.

From the spring of 2020, DRASTIC’s skeptical, inquisitive and hyperactive amateur sleuths have been flooding the public arena with troubling arguments and helping to sway public opinion and media coverage. “We felt our mission was to represent the lab leak hypothesis and I think we did actually a remarkable job,” said DRASTIC’s co-founder, the Russian-born Canadian biotech entrepreneur Yuri Deigin.

From the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, questions have hung over the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. The zoonosis hypothesis postulating that it may have come from an animal in Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market, continues to be considered the most likely by a large majority of scientists, even though there has never been definitive proof to support the theory.

Or was it the result of a research accident? DRASTIC’s researchers – the Sherlock Holmeses of internet sleuthing – dug up several technical documents that shone the light of suspicion on the city’s labs, in particular the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that specializes in bat coronavirus research. “It’s interesting, it shows that non-professional scientific actors can contribute to an important debate,” said the biologist Virginie Courtier, who collaborated with DRASTIC.

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