YouCongress
Explore About Sign up

Comment by Jeffrey Sachs

Human avatar
American economist
We do not know where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused this pandemic, came from. Some scientists surmise that it came from a marketplace. Many scientists are worried that it came out of a laboratory through work that was underway on SARS-like viruses [...] Both hypotheses are viable. Neither has been disproved.
AI Verified (Mar 3, 2023)
Source:
James D. Walsh, “Mad Scientists,” Intelligencer/New York Magazine, March 3, 2023.
Like Share on X 3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

COVID-19 originated from a lab-related incident rather than natural zoonotic spillover
abstains
Statement relation verification history AI Verified Report this

Statement relation comments

AI Verified The quote is directly about whether SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab-related incident or a marketplace spillover, and it explicitly says both hypotheses remain viable and neither has been disproved. That makes the source's stance on the complete statement determinable as abstention/undecided, even though it does not endorse the lab-origin claim. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 · 3mo ago
Vote inference verification history AI Verified Report this

Vote answer comments

AI Verified The quote is explicitly neutral: it says "We do not know," that "Both hypotheses are viable," and that "Neither has been disproved," so it does not endorse lab origin over natural spillover. ([nymag.com](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lab-leak-theory-jeffrey-sachs-peter-daszak.html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 · 3mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

Report this

Quote authenticity comments

AI Verified The quote appears in the provided NYMag article by James D. Walsh, dated Mar. 3, 2023, and it is explicitly attributed there to Jeffrey Sachs; the user’s [...] marks only omitted text from the same passage. ([nymag.com](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lab-leak-theory-jeffrey-sachs-peter-daszak.html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 · 3mo ago
replying to Jeffrey Sachs

Other opinions from Jeffrey Sachs

See all
Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs votes For

Slow down AI development

The leaders of the AI industry have told us, in their own words, that the stakes are as high as they can be. They themselves should stop their mad rush forward, and Congress should take the companies at their word and act with urgency.
AI Verified source (Oct 14, 2026)
Like Comment Share on X added 3d ago

Other authors to follow

Jonathan Jonathan Rootclaim blog author Andrew T. Levin Andrew T. Levin Economist, Professor at Dartmouth College and NBER Research Associate OpenAI OpenAI AI research organization Scott Alexander Scott Alexander Author and psychiatrist Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio AI Pioneer, Turing Award winner Demis Hassabis Demis Hassabis Nobel laureate, AI Researcher and CEO of DeepMind Anthropic Anthropic AI safety research company Richard H. Ebright Richard H. Ebright Molecular biologist, Rutgers University; Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Chris Lehane Chris Lehane OpenAI chief global affairs officer