Discovering the origins of COVID will shape the next pandemic. Scientists believe this was either nature’s way or an accidental leak. There is no consensus. here’s why.
Four years after the COVID-19 pandemic led to a nationwide lockdown, scientists are still trying to find conclusive evidence to pinpoint where the virus first infected humans.
But does it really matter where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, originated — now that life has returned to a sort of normal? What is the difference if the virus leaked from a lab or evolved in nature?
Well, researchers say it doesn’t matter: They say it’s one of the most important questions for our understanding of how pandemics start and how we can prevent them in the future.
The answer, he says, will have a lasting impact on health policy, scientific funding, public opinion on science and diplomatic relations.
Not to mention the fact that we are still living with Covid: the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Covid-19 dashboard continues to report hundreds of thousands of cases every month around the world.
But from lab leak theories to zoonotic theories and conspiracy theories in between, there is no consensus on the origins of COVID.
With new investigations and analyzes emerging on this fourth anniversary, we take a look at current thinking.
Did SARS-CoV-2 leak from a lab?
The arguments for the lab leak theory center around the Wuhan Institute of Virology, an institute where scientists were researching the coronavirus at the time of the initial outbreak in China.
“The strongest evidence comes from the timeline of the research [going back to] 2012. The institute’s published papers show that scientists can create modified coronaviruses,” said Richard H. Ebright, professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University in the US.
The research included genetically altering the coronavirus to make it stronger – such as adding a spike protein – and testing the virus’s ability to spread. Their stated purpose was to help stop the coronavirus outbreak.
But we do not know how many coronaviruses the institute studied. “He refused to cooperate from the beginning,” Ebright said.
Some experts say it’s possible that the Wuhan lab contained the ancestral strain — the progenitor — of SARS-CoV-2, but China’s alleged concealment of information about the origins of COVID made it impossible to prove or disprove. Is.
Then the question is how the virus might have leaked. Some say it was accidentally leaked due to weak security measures in the laboratory, and others say it was deliberately developed and released as a biological weapon. But there is no solid evidence for either theory.
“Every form of lab leak theory involves some kind of cover-up, which to me means it’s a conspiracy theory,” said Edward Holmes, a professor of virology at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Did COVID-19 come from nature?
Some scientists prefer the zoonotic theory: the theory that the virus evolved from an existing coronavirus in nature and spread from wild animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.
The researchers said they analyzed statistical data to find out what they said were the first human cases and that those cases were among market vendors who sold live animals.
“The evidence supports a zoonotic origin,” said Angie Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “This includes a detailed study of SARS-CoV-2 […] and its evolutionary trajectory once [it was in] human population.”
Scientists have studied samples of wild animals in Wuhan for signs of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. But they have failed to find it. And they have also failed to trace how the virus spread from the market to the outside environment.
“The important step of tracing and testing the animals at the Huanan market was not taken [at the time] And now it’s too late. For this reason, we have been unable to identify the exact lineage of the animals,” Holmes said.
But given that the Huanan market is 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, some continue to suggest that the lab and/or the market were the epicenter of COVID.
Origin of Covid: Turning towards nature?
An expert survey in February 2024 found that most scientists believe COVID emerged from nature.
Expert respondents gave the natural, zoonotic (or zoonosis) theory an average probability of 77% – four out of five experts said its probability was greater than 50%. But experts said there was a 21% chance that COVID started due to a “research-related accident” – with one in five experts saying there was a 50% or higher chance.
“When you take into account other intelligence, the lab leak theory starts to look more plausible,” said Seth Baum of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, which co-published the survey with Nemesis Insights.
When Baum refers to “other intelligences,” he is talking about non-scientific factors, such as proximity of the laboratory to the marketplace.
However, much of the evidence that could provide conclusive answers has been lost or is unavailable for public scrutiny.
“Whether we get evidence-based conclusions depends on cooperation from countries like China and coming forward with data,” Baum said.
One thing experts agree on is that we need to keep trying to solve the mystery of Covid’s origins – it could determine how we respond to the next pandemic.
