By Mathew Goldstein
The book Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 by Alina Chen and Matt Ridley is currently highly rated on Amazon. I am not convinced obtaining a definitive answer to this question is as important as Michael Shermer and Matt Ridley claim in their discussion of the book. Yet it should be of concern that when virology labs collect potential pathogens for study, despite good intentions, there is a risk they will accidentally initiate a pandemic. If you are interested in this topic then Matt Ridley explains clearly, competently, and concisely in this interview why the possibilities that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after it was modified to more easily infect humans, or was spread by people traveling between the lab and the horseshoe bat caves in southern China or Laos to bring samples to the lab for testing, merits being taken seriously: Matt Ridley on the search for the origin of COVID-19.
