Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“Even very smart pundits (and myself) are occasionally fooled by coincidences. One of the worst recent examples involves the debate over the origin of Covid. Throughout history, pandemics often begin in major cities in southern China, where large populations live in close proximity to wild animal markets. This is how the first SARS epidemic began in November 2002. The Covid pandemic (SARS-2) seems to have begun in an almost identical fashion, in a wild animal market in one of southern China’s largest cities. Despite that fact, many pundits have embraced the completely unsubstantiated theory that Covid came from a lab leak, because among the half dozen largest metro areas in southern China, it first popped up in one that has an important virus research institute. That’s one of the weakest coincidences I’ve ever seen, and yet many people seem to view it as providing strong support for the lab leak theory.” (07/09/25)