Debunking COVID-19 Debunking

According to this screed, COVID-19 did NOT originate inside a bioweapons lab:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scientists-debunk-coronavirus-conspiracy-say-it-threatens-to-undermine-global-efforts-to-stop-it-220044983.html

Here is the rationale:

The lab itself is classified as BSL-4 - or biolevel security 4 - one of just 50 worldwide. BSL-4 status is reserved for the work with the most dangerous pathogens and operates with the highest security possible. Individuals working there are required to wear hazmat suits and use ventilated workspaces that are fully enclosed. In order to exit the lab, scientists must go through a chemical shower (which disinfects the suit), then enter a room to remove the suit and, finally, a third room where they immediately shower.

Given these precautions, scientists say it would be near impossible for contaminants to make it outside the facility.

"Near impossible"?

This argument ignores something which happened at the Yale Arbovirus Research Unit in New Haven, CT in 1994:

Shope's lab was thrust into the news last summer when a visiting researcher accidentally infected himself with a rodent-borne virus from Brazil called Sabia. Separate federal and university investigations later found several lapses in safety knowledge and procedures at the lab.

Source - https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1995-02-20-9502200124-story.html

I listened to an interview with Shope in which he described what happened in that incident. The visiting researcher dropped and broke a container of the virus, cleaned up the mess himself, and then went home without telling anyone what had happened. When he became sick, he went to a hospital emergency room in New Haven for treatment, potentially exposing medical personnel and patients, and STILL did not tell anyone what had happened.

Granted, the Yale lab wasn't a BSL-4 lab, but this incident proves that "near impossible" events can and do happen.

By the way, after this happened Shope moved to the UT facilities in Galveston, TX where it appears current research with COVID-19 is being conducted in a BSL-4 lab. Is a release of COVID-19 from THAT facility "near impossible"? Maybe, but as Dr. Ian Malcolm observed in Jurassic Park, "life, uh … finds a way."

These labs should NOT be in populated areas, if they should be allowed to exist at all.