In the mid 1960s, my mom worked in an infectious disease lab. One day, her and her colleagues were tasked with cleaning out a freezer full of samples. Shortly thereafter her and everyone else in the lab got a flu-like illness that did not clear up for many days.

It really makes me wonder how many lab leaks may have happened during this time period when we started collecting and storing samples but we didn't yet have the ability to track diseases like we do today.