A new sophisticated statistical analysis from an economics professor at Dartmouth University indicates that there is a high probability that COVID-19 originated from a lab accident in China, rather than from animals.
Andrew Levin, a monetary economist who has published other papers on COVID since the pandemic started in 2020, released a draft paper on Monday using a complex form of statistical modeling to compare the competing hypotheses of where the virus originated.
The debate over the origins of COVID has become a flashpoint issue in the medical and public health community over the past half-decade. Although experts agree that the pandemic started in the city of Wuhan, China, whether SARS-CoV-2 spread to humans through animals or from an accidental lab leak has created deep divisions over what constitutes credible science.
“It’s inexcusable that we’re five years after the start of the pandemic and 20 million people died and we still don’t know more about where it came from,” Levin told the Washington Examiner in an interview.
Levin’s paper uses Bayesian statistics, a method that involves updating beliefs based on prior knowledge and new evidence, using probability. Levin told the Washington Examiner that his study improves on the existing research, which had assessed the probabilities of where COVID started using traditional statistical methods, essentially reviewing each hypothesis in isolation.
“The problem with that is we really want to compare two hypotheses side by side,” Levin said, explaining that Bayesian statistical models allow for such contrast while traditional methods fail.
Bayesian methods have grown in popularity in the past few decades with the advent of improved statistical software and computing power. But Levin’s paper is the first to apply the technique to the COVID origins debate.
Levin examined multiple facets of the origins debate, ranging from raccoon dogs to genetic sequencing, in the sweeping 100-page paper with over 560 footnotes of references.
But his most unique finding uses data from a World Health Organization 2021 report that pinpointed the exact location of the first confirmed infections in late November and early December 2019.
Most of the earliest confirmed cases of COVID were concentrated in the area of Wuhan southeast of the Yangtze River, which cuts through the heart of the city. This is the area of Wuhan that is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a premier research institution known for its scholarly work on bat coronaviruses.
The area near the WIV, Levin described, is a much less densely populated region of the city compared to the northwestern portion on the opposite side of the river, which contains the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where those who support the animal theory of origin say the outbreak started.
Instead of only looking at the location of case clusters to determine the origin of the virus, Levin’s model takes into account population density of each region to calculate the probability of the virus originating from a lab accident compared to an animal outbreak.
In other words, Levine calculated for each competing hypothesis how likely it was for residents of Wuhan to become infected with COVID based upon their specific location in the city.
Comparing case locations to population density of the respective sides of the river, Levin’s math indicates a 27 to 1 higher odds of a lab leak incident than an animal-based event.
Although the locations of early infection sites have been well documented, Levin’s is the first paper to use probabilistic methods comparing the population density with the timing of cases reporting.
“All that is very well trod ground in epidemiology. I wasn’t reinventing the wheel on methodology,” Levin said.
Levin’s paper was circulated as a working draft through the National Bureau of Economic Research, meaning that it has not been published in a scientific journal or undergone the traditional peer review process. But Levin said that he has shown the draft to both expert statisticians and epidemiology colleagues before making it public.
When asked why someone with his monetary economics background has started to write about COVID from an epidemiological perspective, Levin said that the “newest person in the room is often the person asking the right questions.”
“I think that’s been difficult for people who are in virology because peer pressure has been immense,” said Levin. “All the editors of all the top journals have said ‘Nope, it was a wild animal. It was not a lab leak. It couldn’t have been a lab leak. Stop talking about a lab.’”
Levin said that there are “strong disincentives to do research” on the controversial topic, particularly for those who depend upon funding from the National Institutes of Health. This, Levin argues, has led to “the just shocking lack of scientific research on the origins of COVID.”
Last year, the House Oversight Committee, on a bipartisan basis, identified that a lab leak theory of origin is not a conspiracy theory, as it had been labeled by many in the public health establishment early in the pandemic. But Democrats disagreed with the Republican majority that evidence showed the lab leak was the most likely point of origin.
In January, the Central Intelligence Agency shifted its position on the origins debate to conclude with low confidence that it likely originated from the WIV, a flip from the previous position that the agency was entirely unsure.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee, has pledged to use his leadership role to continue examining the origins of COVID and push for public health agency reform to ensure the safety of biologically hazardous experiments funded by the United States.
Levin said that he hopes President Donald Trump and Congress will encourage more novel research on the origins of COVID. He also hopes the new trifecta will establish a blue-ribbon commission, similar to the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission, to investigate COVID origins free from political bias.
“This shouldn’t be case closed yet,” said Levin.