Viral
by Alina Chan, Matt Ridley · first published 2021
20mentions
9recommended by
17HN commenters
2021–2025first – last mentioned
53% recommend47% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Evidence-focused account of the COVID-19 lab leak question, covering furin cleavage, market-based arguments, and the DEFUSE grant document; recommended as a thorough, measured read on the origins debate.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…squashed early on for political reasons. This book that came out recently and it’s extremely compelling. I was fully in the “lab link is conspiracy theory” camp until I read it. https://www.amazon.ca/Viral-Search-COVID-19-Matt-Ridley/dp/0...
on “Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in an animal host” ↗The best book I've read on the topic of the lab leak theory is "Viral" by Alina Chan & Matt Ridley. It goes into the nitty-gritty scientific detail as well, but also covers some of the things you mentioned too.
on “What went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted” ↗…behind honest. China isn't being honest. There's too many parties with ulterior motives to trust anything being said. China has done a great job of looking like they're covering something up. I read "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley" and it convinced me the lab leak theory was at least fairly likely. The proximity of the outbreak to WIV -- which was doing gain-of-function…
on “CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins” ↗"Viral" by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley is worth reading. But I don't think there's much doubt now that Sars-CoV2 was the result of reckless gain-of-function research conducted jointly between China's Wuhan Institute…
on “Possibly a Serious Possibility” ↗The article shouldn’t have quote this person in the first place - there are plenty of serious investigations into the lab leak theory from reputable virologists. I recommend Alina Chan’s new book: Viral. This clarification also masquerades as a clarification of something important. This person quoted by the tabloid is irrelevant here. In fact this article does more damage to the credibility of lab theory…
on “Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt” ↗…public in time for printing). Covers everything else we know so far - all about furin cleavage, the market-based arguments, and especially the ‘DEFUSE’ grant application document to DARPA. It’s titled Viral and it’s written by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley (he was the author of ‘How Innovation Works’.)
on “The Next ‘Lab Leak’” ↗Check out “Viral” by Chan and Ridley - I highly recommend this book. Edit: Yes, the initial pandemic virus most likely leaked from WIV lab in Wuhan. Whether it was engineered and whether it was intentional are different…
on “Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate (2015)” ↗…gain-of-function research with infectious viruses and microbes. As far as the details on the origins of Covid and links to the Ecohealth-Alliance-funded Wuhan Institute of Virology, well, read a book (Viral by Chan & Ridley, 2021). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58647975-viral Here's an alternative list of questions that I'd argue really matter, but which are typically avoided by corporate media:…
on “Reality is just a game now” ↗I highly recommend the book “Viral” by Chan and Ridley to anyone curious about this pandemic’s origin.
on “Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt” ↗A lot of the tweet mirrors what is described in more detail, and better sources, by Alina Chan in Viral, Search for the Origin of Covid-19. In my opinion a book worth reading, as it doesn't try too hard to point a finger but raises enough circumstantial arguments to support _anything other than a natural…
on “Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis” ↗what could possibly go wrong this time! I strongly recommend “Viral” by Ridley and Chan to those who haven’t read it.
on “Peter Daszak has a new grant from the NIH to study bat coronaviruses in the wild” ↗…lab-leak hypothesis?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31866601 [flagged] More evidence that Covid-19 started in a market, not a laboratory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30566956 Book Review: “Viral” by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29764537 US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145
on “Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic” ↗…'lab leak' theory. Facebook actively censored it. Fact checkers 'disproved it'. Leading scientists called it a conspiracy theory. Yet it appears to be a perfectly valid theory. https://www.amazon.com/Viral-Search-COVID-19-Matt-Ridley/dp/... It is not the first time that this has happened. We were told that Irak had weapons of mass destruction. It was announced at the United Nations. All mainstream news…
on “I was deceived about Covid vaccine safety” ↗If it were just a conspiracy theory, someone would have gone through the claims in the book "Viral" by Matt Ridley and Alina Chan and debunked its arguments one by one. Matt Ridley is a journalist who wrote numerous books about scientific topics (one about the genome in 1999). Alina Chan is a biologist…
on “WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of Covid-origins investigation” ↗This is Alina Chan, one of the co-authors of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. In defense of a natural origin of Omicron, this study describes the remarkable evolution of SARS-CoV-2 during convalescent plasma treatment of an immunosuppressed…
on “Lab Leak 2.0?” ↗