Peter Daszak on COVID-19 originated from a lab-related …

Peter Daszak

British-American zoologist and disease ecologist

I’ll repeat myself again; the evidence for the lab leak is innuendo, supposition about motives and out-of-context quotes from private emails purposefully amplified to arouse reaction and fears. A scientist can’t say with 100 percent certainty that something is impossible because you can never prove a negative. What you can say is that a lab leak origin for COVID should be treated like any other hypothesis that is extremely unlikely and probably unprovable—it should not be a basis for policy. [...] The lab leak was extremely unlikely then, it has been all along, and it likely always will be. The emergence from the wildlife market is the essential conclusion and every piece of new evidence that has been gathered since that investigation supports that very concrete conclusion.

AI Verified source (Apr 5, 2026)

3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident rather than natural zoonotic spillover

votes Against

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AI Verified The quote is directly about the statement’s core claim: whether COVID-19 came from a lab-related incident or from natural spillover. In source context, Daszak is answering a question about 'lab origin' and says 'the lab leak was extremely unlikely' while 'the emergence from the wildlife market is the essential conclusion,' which makes his stance on the complete statement clearly determinable. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified He is clearly against it: he says the lab-leak evidence is just "innuendo," calls a lab origin "extremely unlikely," says it "should not be a basis for policy," and concludes that emergence from the wildlife market is the "essential conclusion." ([wsws.org](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/04/06/jhmx-a06.html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The provided WSWS article contains this quote verbatim, with the submitter’s [...] accurately omitting intervening sentences, across the interview transcript at lines 97-99. The passage is explicitly attributed to “Peter Daszak (PD),” and the page itself is dated 5 April 2026, which matches the stored date. ([wsws.org](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/04/06/jhmx-a06.html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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Peter Daszak votes For

The clustering of early cases around the Huanan market reflects where the COVID-19 virus emerged, not just where testing looked

The first cases were associated with that market, not the lab. Detailed, sophisticated analysis supports that conclusion. Nothing supports the lab leak. The one—and only—piece of evidence for a lab leak is that there’s a lab in Wuhan.

AI Verified source (Apr 5, 2026)