We may never know where COVID originated. Here’s why

A classified intelligence report from the US Department of Energy concluding the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a laboratory leak may give a boost to those who support the theory, but scientists say it will not end the debate over the origin of the virus.

Indeed, some say that a definitive answer will never be found.

“There are many cold criminal cases that are never solved, despite the efforts made because we don’t have enough evidence about what happened. I think you have a very similar situation here,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University Minnesota.

“We’ll never really know.”

‘Big failure of the pandemic’

Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, agreed that it is unlikely that the origins will be resolved.

“I think historians will look back and they will see it as one of the great pandemic failures,” he said.

Many scientists believe that the virus originated in nature, which is called zoonotic or natural spillover, meaning that the virus originated in animals, mutated and jumped to humans – as happened with viruses in the past.

The lab leak theory proposes that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who are working with the coronavirus, may have studied or even modified the virus to better understand it, when one accidentally escaped from the lab.

Although initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the idea of ​​a lab leak is now considered by some in the scientific community to be the most unlikely path to explore.

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal published a report noting that the US Department of Energy, which oversees the national network of laboratories, has concluded with “low confidence” that the pandemic started as a result of a laboratory leak.

The Wall Street Journal said the confidential report was based on new intelligence.

Past intelligence reports indicate that a low confidence level generally means that the information used in the analysis is “deficient, questionable, fragmentary, or that solid analytical conclusions cannot be drawn from the information” and may mean that the intelligence community has significant concerns or issues with source of information.

There is no consensus on the origin

John Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, said on Monday that there is currently no consensus within the US government on how the COVID-19 pandemic started.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the origin of the virus is “likely” due to what happened in a laboratory in Wuhan, a position that the agency affirmed in a tweet the same day.

But Gostin, of Georgetown University, said the new report from the Wall Street Journal does little to clear up the debate, because the Department of Energy has so far not said how its conclusions about the coronavirus stemmed from laboratory leaks.

“They haven’t revealed any scientific or other evidence that would support that theory,” Gostin said. “So I don’t know how anyone with that conclusion can come up with the idea that this validates the theory.”

To determine whether the virus came from a lab, Osterholm said investigators ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ have documented that the virus was in the laboratory, looking for evidence that people who worked in the laboratory tested positive for the virus and that they had been in the community. after entering the lab.

Without that information, he said, “you can’t go back and say this is what happened there.”

As evidence of natural spillover, researchers should find evidence of the virus among the animal population at the Wuhan animal market, which Osterholm said has not been done.

“Those two [scenarios] leave unanswered questions that will never be answered,” he said.

Also, Gostin said, trying to determine where it came from when it’s been so long since the initial spread can be very difficult.

“The more time it takes, the more difficult it is to trace the steps it comes from,” he said.

Gostin also noted that the Chinese government, which rejects the idea of ​​COVID-19 originating from a laboratory leak, has blocked investigators from the World Health Organization and other independent investigative teams from accessing laboratories, animal markets or the health system and hospitals in Wuhan. .

‘Impossible to resolve this controversy’

“And without being able to be in the field, look at the records, do the genetic sampling, it will be very impossible to resolve this controversy.”

In March 2021, a team of WHO researchers published a report that determined that it was “very likely” that the coronavirus had a zoonotic source, meaning that it was transmitted to humans by animals. He also concluded that the idea that a laboratory incident was the source was “impossible.”

But the report was later criticized by the US, Canada, members of the scientific community and other governments for the lack of access given to the researchers.

A few months later, the WHO announced that it had created a new advisory group – the Scientific Advisory Group on Novel Pathogen Origins (SAGO). A preliminary report released in June 2022 said further research is needed to determine how COVID-19 started, including a more detailed analysis of possible laboratory leaks.

However, William Schaffner, medical director of the Maryland-based National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said that Chinese authorities were not completely transparent when the virus began to spread, and are unlikely to be transparent in the future.

“And I think that’s where we are … we’re stuck,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever have a definitive answer that satisfies everyone.”