We'll probably never know how COVID originated
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More than six years after COVID swept the world, there's still no definitive answer about its true origins — and likely never will be.
Why it matters: For all of the political vitriol and intelligence disputes over the topic, missing evidence means the debate over whether it jumped from animals to humans or came from a lab may never be satisfyingly settled.
- That lack of closure could breed more recriminations and institutional distrust.
Driving the news: The Senate Homeland Security Committee's legal battle against former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has brought COVID's origins roaring back into the political sphere.
- The committee subpoenaed Fauci to answer questions at a hearing about how the pandemic began only to see him invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, citing Chairman Rand Paul's desire to see him imprisoned.
- The committee voted along partisan lines last week to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. Paul (R-Ky.) then referred the matter to the Department of Justice.
The big picture: There have been numerous assessments over the past six years of whether COVID jumped naturally from animals — potentially in a Chinese wet market — or was the product of a leak from a Chinese lab.
- But the conclusions use language like "suggests" or "likely" or "probable," building cases through the biology of the virus, declassified intelligence reports and other circumstantial evidence.
- There's never been an identified "case one" — the first infected person — to help settle the matter.
- Though the lab leak theory has gained traction in recent years, it will remain just a theory unless more clear-cut information about what happened to whom and when emerges.
- "Deliberate suppression of public health information in China has been detrimental to international efforts to determine the origins of the pandemic," states the introduction to a review of the debate by Robert Kadlec, a top health official during the crisis, published last year.
Between the lines: A big part of the furor on the political right is over Fauci's alleged role in downplaying the lab leak theory.
- In the early days of the pandemic, the idea of COVID escaping a virology lab in Wuhan, China, was dismissed by most of the scientific establishment and the media.
But its credibility has grown over time.
- Former President Biden's COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha recently captured headlines for saying he believes a lab leak is more likely, after embracing the natural origins theory during his time in the White House.
- "No one in the United States know for sure. The only people who know for sure are people, officials in China. And we still need transparency and accountability on that," he told CNN's Dana Bash.
- "I'm saying my best assessment is that it probably was a lab leak."
The bottom line: Though the health emergency is far behind us, knowing how it started — and how to prevent future pandemics — would still be essential information.
