THE VIDS: AN ORIGIN STORY

On Friday March 30, 1979 there was a significant anthrax outbreak among the population of Sverdlovsk. Local officials and scientists argued to citizens and the world that these bacterial infections were zoonotic.

The USSR eventually invited international experts to investigate. The team returned with a report suggesting the outbreak resulted from a contaminated meat processing plant.

It wasn't until 1992 that Boris Yeltsin admitted the real cause was a virology lab leak -- one that he, as a Sverdlovsk Party official, personally helped cover up.

But a lab leak is unlikely, right? Not at all. Leaks of dangerous pathogens are common events that have been documented in several countries. The most notable lab leak is the Chinese H1N1 lab escape from 1977 which caused a global pandemic. And then there was that rash of escapes of the 2003 SARS virus: first in the summer of 2003 in Singapore, then in Taiwan in the winter, and then twice in the spring of 2004 in China. The most recent that we know of is the November 2019 outbreak of brucellosis in Lanzhou, China, that infected over 100 students and staff at two labs.