> “The connection between RaTG13, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Sars-CoV-2 isn’t required any more,” says Robertson.
But it was never required, just possible (and perhaps plausible, according to many people).
I did, however, find lots of transparent attempts to throw mud at the lab leak hypothesis, like this little gem of spontaneous irrelevance:
> The resurgence of the lab leak theory – promulgated early last year by Donald Trump and his supporters, before being dismissed – has been fuelled by the...
The gist of the article seems not to be related to any "new studies", but rather this:
> This leaves the lab leak theory resting principally, for now, on unverified reports of three cases of respiratory illness among the WIV’s nearly 600 staff in November 2019, a winter month in Wuhan, and the fact that the institute took a database of viral genome sequences offline two months earlier – to protect it from hackers, they told WHO investigators.
Fine. But what does the alternative hypothesis rest on? The only claim they make on behalf of the natural origin is that it has happened before. Well guess what: this[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...
I dislike the use of "conspiracy theory" as a thought stopper to block discussion of anything potentially politically problematic. It doesn't take a conspiracy for a virus to leak from a lab, just an accident. Was Chernobyl a conspiracy where the Soviets somehow wanted to melt down a reactor?
Some people can be asymptomatic carriers, so it could even have leaked without anyone noticing until the pandemic had started.
If there is any conspiracy it would have come later when people tried to cover their asses. That's almost always how real conspiracies unfold. For example, when financial collapses occur usually the most egregious financial fraud is found to have happened as the crash happened and in the aftermath.
BTW given that the research was being done in China but funded by the USA and involved collaboration with US researchers, you can't only blame China. Both the US and China could take the blame if a lab leak turns out to be true. My guess is that both nations would point a finger at the other and say "they did it" while the rest of the world would say "you both did it."