Once again, the ‘lab leak’ theory of COVID’s origin has returned to the headlines. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that a US Department of Energy report had determined that the origin of COVID was ” most likely” an accidental release from a laboratory, according to those who had read the report, though the assessment was with “low confidence”.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns told a US Chamber of Commerce event on Monday that China needs to “be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the Covid-19 crisis”.
China’s foreign ministry countered that COVID’s origin “was about science and should not be politicised”.
The FBI assigned “moderate confidence” to a laboratory origin for the virus, while four other US agencies assigned a “low confidence” to a natural origin. Two others, including the CIA, remained undecided. An update on their views has been provided, apparently due to new information, but has not been made public.
To many scientists, the origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been settled as it has been traced to outbreaks in the Wuhan meat market two weeks before its first detection. A literature analysis published in PNAS concluded that the evidence overwhelmingly favoured a natural origin.
Many other scientists are not convinced by the zoonotic hypothesis. Virologist Jesse Bloom, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, said the PNAS review’s literature analysis was a good idea – but the zoonosis proponents haven’t provided much new data. “What we’ve seen is mostly reanalysis and reinterpretation of existing evidence.”
The PNAS review started out as a Lancet commission led by Jeffrey Sachs, who disbanded the task force due to a number of members with vested interests against the lab leak hypothesis. Their aim was to gather lessons learnt from the pandemic. The Lancet eventually published its own review, which concluded that there was equal probability for a laboratory or natural origin.
Even so, a continued lack of cooperation from China with international investigators has made it virtually impossible to definitively pinpoint the virus’s emergence. Ultimately, the lesson of past pandemics is that outbreaks can result from either zoonotic origins or from laboratory accidents, both of which are factors which need to be safeguarded against by humans.
The source of the COVID pandemic likely is down to live animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, according to an international team of researchers.
The researchers traced the start of the pandemic to the market in Wuhan, China, where animals susceptible to the virus were sold live immediately before the pandemic began. Their findings were published in a pair of papers in the journal Science.
The publications all but rule out other explanations for the start of the pandemic, such as the ‘lab leak’ hypothesis. The authors further conclude that the first spread to humans from animals likely occurred in two separate transmission events in the Huanan market in late November 2019.
The first study looked at the locations of the first known COVID cases, as well as swab samples taken various places in the market. The second study examined genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 from samples collected from COVID patients during the first weeks of the pandemic in China.
The first paper, led by University of Arizona virus evolution expert Michael Worobey and Professor Kristian Andersen, was able to determine the locations of almost all of the 174 COVID cases identified by the World Health Organization in December 2019, 155 of which were in Wuhan.
A ‘bullseye’ on the market
Analyses showed that these cases were clustered tightly around the Huanan market, whereas later cases were dispersed widely throughout Wuhan. A striking percentage of early COVID patients had not visited there but turned out to live near the market. This suggests that vendors got infected first and set off a chain of infections among community members in the surrounding area, said Worobey.
“In a city covering more than 3000 square miles, the area with the highest probability of containing the home of someone who had one of the earliest COVID cases in the world was an area of a few city blocks, with the Huanan market smack dab inside it,” said Worobey.
This conclusion was supported by another finding: When the authors looked at the geographical distribution of later COVID cases, from January and February 2020, they found a “polar opposite” pattern, Worobey said. While the cases from December 2019 mapped “like a bullseye” on the market, the later cases coincided with areas of the highest population density in Wuhan.
“This tells us the virus was not circulating cryptically,” Worobey said. “It really originated at that market and spread out from there.”
Worobey and collaborators also addressed the question of whether health authorities found cases around the market simply because that is where they looked.
To rule out bias even more, from the market outwards the team removed cases ran the stats again. They found that even when two-thirds of cases were removed, the findings remained the same.
“Even in that scenario, with the majority of cases, removed, we found that the remaining ones lived closer to the market than what would be expected if there was no geographical correlation between these earliest COVID cases and the market,” Worobey said.
The study also looked at swab samples taken from market surfaces like floors and cages after Huanan market was closed. SARS-CoV-2-positive samples were significantly associated with stalls selling live wildlife.
The researchers determined that mammals now known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, including red foxes, hog badgers and raccoon dogs, were sold live at the Huanan market in the weeks preceding the first recorded COVID cases. The scientists developed a detailed map of the market and showed that SARS-CoV-2-positive samples reported by Chinese researchers in early 2020 showed a clear association with the western portion of the market, where live or freshly butchered animals were sold in late 2019.
“Upstream events are still obscure, but our analyses of available evidence clearly suggest that the pandemic arose from initial human infections from animals for sale at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late November 2019,” said Prof Andersen at Scripps Research, co-senior author of both studies.
Virus likely jumped from animals to humans more than once
The second study, was an analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomic data from early cases.
The researchers combined epidemic modeling with analyses of the virus’s early evolution based on the earliest sampled genomes. They determined that the pandemic, which initially involved two subtly distinct lineages of SARS-CoV-2, likely arose from at least two separate infections of humans from animals at the Huanan market in November 2019 and perhaps in December 2019. The analyses also suggested that, in this period, there were many other animal-to-human transmissions of the virus at the market that failed to manifest in recorded COVID-19 cases.
Using molecular clock analysis, which relies on the natural pace with which genetic mutations occur over time, researchers established a framework for the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus lineages. They found that a scenario of a singular introduction of the virus into humans rather than multiple introductions would not align with molecular clock data. Earlier studies had suggested that one lineage of the virus – named A and closely related to viral relatives in bats – gave rise to a second lineage, named B. The more likely scenario in which the two lineages jumped from animals into humans on separate occasions, both at the Huanan market, Worobey said.
“Otherwise, lineage A would have had to have been evolving in slow motion compared to the lineage B virus, which just doesn’t make biological sense,” said Worobey.
The two studies provide evidence that COVID originated via jumps from animals to humans at the Huanan market, likely following transmission to those animals from coronavirus-carrying bats in the wild or on farms in China. Moving forward, the researchers say scientists and public officials should seek better understanding of the wildlife trade in China and elsewhere and promote more comprehensive testing of live animals sold in markets to lower the risk of future pandemics.
COVID heat map. Photo by Giacomo Carra on Unsplash
A recent article by The Telegraph revealed documents on grant applications by US and Wuhan scientists to conduct coronavirus research in 2018. However, it is important to note that these grants were not funded, and are not direct evidence of a ‘lab leak’ or research-related origin for the coronavirus.
The documents, obtained by a scientist-activist group calling itself DRASTICand confirmed as authentic by a member of the Trump administration, detail grant requests for antigen-bearing nanoparticles and aerosols to be released into bat caves to immunise bat populations. Note that “coronavirus particles” as The Telegraph describes them would be immunising nanoparticles which could describe coronavirus vaccines. Another proposal involved adding “human-specific cleavage sites” to bat coronaviruses to facilitate entry into human cells. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) however, refused to fund the work, saying it would have “put local communities at risk.”
What is perhaps more concerning were details of an effort for gain of function research in MERS-CoV, which has a 30% fatality rate, something which an anonymous World Health Organization COVID researcher suggests could have resulted in a pandemic that was “nearly apocalyptic.”
Scientists, however, urge continued impartiality and examining all possibilities, even controversial ones. In an article published on Friday, 24 September in The Lancet, authors point out that there is neither solid evidence for either a natural origin or a for a research origin. In the nineteen months since the beginning of the pandemic, no natural origin has been found despite extensive searching, and independent international researchers do not have access to the investigation sites in China, raw data or samples. However, it took several years for the natural origins of SARS-CoV-1 to be discovered.
They also point out that a research origin for the virus cannot be excluded. Optimisation of the receptor binding domain for human ACE2 could occur through selection or cell cultures, without requiring knowledge of it in advance. Although certain genetic engineering techniques leave signatures in the genome, so-called ‘seamless’ techniques exist.
“On the basis of the current scientific literature, complemented by our own analyses of coronavirus genomes and proteins, we hold that there is currently no compelling evidence to choose between a natural origin (ie, a virus that has evolved and been transmitted to humans solely via contact with wild or farmed animals) and a research-related origin (which might have occurred at sampling sites, during transportation or within the laboratory, and might have involved natural, selected, or engineered viruses).”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged all countries “to put differences aside” in order to speed up investigations into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – including the unproven suggestion that it was accidentally released from laboratory.
This announcement follows a joint report into the origins of the coronavirus issued in March by the WHO and China. The UN agency, noting “insufficient scientific evidence to rule any of the hypotheses out” about the origins of the new coronavirus, insisted that to address the ‘lab hypothesis’, it needed access “to all data” in order to prevent global health threats in future. “WHO calls for all governments to depoliticise the situation and cooperate to accelerate the origins studies, and importantly to work together to develop a common framework for future emerging pathogens of pandemic potential,” it said.
“We call on all governments to put differences aside and work together to provide all data and access required so that the next series of studies can be commenced as soon as possible.”
In a detailed statement, WHO explained the need for additional studies into “all hypotheses” about how SARS-CoV-2 made the jump from animals to humans.
Transparency call A new independent advisory group of experts, the International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), will support the project by coordinating the studies recommended in the March report, it said.
Nominations for the panel would be welcomed from all countries, WHO said, whose task would be similar to previous COVID missions to China and those launched to investigate the origins of avian influenza, Lassa virus and Ebola virus.
“This open call aims to ensure that a broad range of scientific skills and expertise are identified to advise WHO on the studies needed to identify the origins of any future emerging or re-emerging pathogen of pandemic potential,” the UN agency said.
Scientific endeavour Noting how hard it is to identify the origin of any novel pathogen, the agency insisted that the mission “is not and should not be an exercise in attributing blame, finger-pointing or political point-scoring. It is vitally important to know how the COVID pandemic began, to set an example for establishing the origins of all future animal-human spill-over events.”
Access to sensitive information was needed for the success of the operation with “a further examination of the raw data from the earliest cases”, along with blood serum from potentially infected people in 2019, before the pandemic.
Data sharing Data from “a number of countries” that reported finding the virus in blood samples taken in 2019 has already been shared with WHO, it noted. This included Italy, where WHO coordinated retesting of pre-pandemic blood samples outside the country.
“Sharing raw data and giving permission for the retesting of samples in labs outside of Italy reflects scientific solidarity at its best and is no different from what we encourage all countries, including China, to support so that we can advance the studies of the origins quickly and effectively,” WHO said, and restated that access to data was “critically important for evolving our understanding of science and should not be politicised in any way”.
SARS-CoV-2 virus. Source: Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash
For most of 2020, the notion that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, was regarded as a debunked conspiracy theory, only embraced by some conservative media supportive of President Donald Trump. But in early 2021 that all changed, and today most outlets across the political spectrum agree that the ‘lab leak’ scenario deserves serious investigation.
An investigation by The BMJ uncovered a concerted campaign by researchers with funding on pandemic-potential virus research to label ‘lab leak’ scenarios as a conspiracy, effectively stifling journalism and investigation into the topic for over a year. One of the leaders of this was Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organisation which received millions in grants for pandemic preparedness research. EcoHealth Alliance subsequently subcontracted work out to the Wuhan laboratories.
Almost from the outset of the pandemic, a February 2020 statement in the Lancet coauthored by Daszak effectively ended the debate. “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”
“It’s become a label you pin on something you don’t agree with,” said Nicholas Wade, a science writer who has worked at Nature, Science, and the New York Times. “It’s ridiculous, because the lab escape scenario invokes an accident, which is the opposite of a conspiracy.”
But hostility to the scenario continued to grow. Filippa Lentzos, codirector of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College, London, told the Wall Street Journal, “Some of the scientists in this area very quickly closed ranks.” She added, “There were people that did not talk about this, because they feared for their careers. They feared for their grants.”
Daszak wrote an essay for the Guardian in June 2020 attacking the former head of MI6 for saying that the pandemic could have “started as an accident,” and continued to receive support from coauthors of the letter. But Daszak’s role in drawing up the statement in the Lancet was revealed in November 2020 in emails obtained through freedom of information requests.
“Please note that this statement will not have EcoHealth Alliance logo on it and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person,” wrote Daszak in a February email, while sending around a draft of the statement for signatories. He also considered omitting his name from the statement to reduce potential negative exposure. A number of the 27 co-signatories omitted reporting their ties to EcoHealth Alliance.
Richard Ebright, professor of molecular biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey and a biosafety expert, considered scientific journal to be complicit in helping to clamp down on talk of a lab leak. “That means Nature, Science, and the Lancet,” he said. Along with dozens of other academics, he has been pushing back against the conspiracy theory labelling of the lab leak scenario.
“It’s very clear at this time that the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is a useful term for defaming an idea you disagree with,” said Ebright, referring to journalists and scientists making use of the term to attack others. “They have been successful until recently in selling that narrative to many in the media.”
Daszak enjoyed more support after then-President Trump cancelled EcoHealth Alliance’s National Institutes of Health funding, and the lab leak scenario remained buried for most of the year. It only resurfaced when a January 2021 New York magazine published an article detailing a possible lab leak scenario, in the face of stiff criticism. The tide began to turn when the World Health Organization investigation (which included Daszak) produced a report which attracted criticism for effectively ruling out the lab leak scenario in the face of almost a complete lack of evidence, such only being allowed a few hours’ worth of supervised access to the Wuhan labs. When Donald Trump lost the Presidential office, the criticism suddenly lost its greatest means for shutting down challenges — its mere association with its most widely-known and disliked proponent.
Citing an intelligence report, the Wall Street Journal, recently reported that three Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were admitted to hospital in November 2019. When President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the scenario, it marked a slow turn-around in media coverage. Many outlets started backtracking their previously publicised viewpoints or adding qualifying statements, justifying them as simply a matter of tracking a “scientific consensus” which, they say, has now changed. Vox posted an erratum noting, “Since this piece was originally published in March 2020, scientific consensus has shifted.”
In recent weeks, a number of high profile scientists who once denigrated the idea that the virus could have come from a lab have made small steps into demanding an open investigation of the pandemic’s origin.
In a recent interview, NIH director Francis Collins said, “The Chinese government should be on notice that we have to have answers to questions that have not been answered about those people who got sick in November who worked in the lab and about those lab notebooks that have not been examined.” He added, “If they really want to be exonerated from this claim of culpability, then they have got to be transparent.”
It is worth noting that searches with phrases like “conspiracy theory”, “lab leak” and “Wuhan” do not turn up any relevant hits on The BMJ website, other than articles published this year which discuss the lab leak scenario seriously and credibly, or an article which discusses the more outlandish viral disinformation typical of the COVID pandemic typically seen in social media. Nor are there any articles with “Daszak” as an author.
SARS-CoV-2 viruses emerging from a human cell. Credit: NIAID
Australian researchers studying SARS-CoV-2 have discovered that the virus is most ideally adapted to infect human cells — instead of bat or pangolin cells, prompting renewed questions about its origin.
The scientists, from Flinders University and La Trobe University, described how they used high-performance computer modelling of SARS-CoV-2’s structure at the beginning of the pandemic to predict its ability to infect humans and a range of 12 domestic and exotic animals.
They were hoping to identify an intermediate animal vector that may have played a role in transmitting a bat virus to humans, and to understand any risk posed by the susceptibilities of pets and livestock.
Using genomic data from 12 animal species, the researchers painstakingly built computer models of the key ACE2 protein receptors for each species. These models were then used to calculate how strongly the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein bound to each species’ ACE2 receptor.
Surprisingly, the results showed that SARS-CoV-2 bound to ACE2 on human cells more tightly than any of the tested animal species, including bats and pangolins. If one of the animal species tested was the origin, it would normally be expected to show the highest binding to the virus.
“Humans showed the strongest spike binding, consistent with the high susceptibility to the virus, but very surprising if an animal was the initial source of the infection in humans,” said Professor David Winkler at La Trobe University.
The findings, originally released on the ArXiv preprint server, have now been peer reviewed and published in Scientific Reports.
“The computer modelling found the virus’s ability to bind to the bat ACE2 protein was poor relative to its ability to bind human cells. This argues against the virus being transmitted directly from bats to humans. Hence, if the virus has a natural source, it could only have come to humans via an intermediary species which has yet to be found,” says Flinders affiliated Professor Nikolai Petrovsky.
The team’s computer modelling also showed fairly strong binding of SARS-CoV-2 to ACE2 from pangolins, which are occasionally used as food or in traditional medicines. Professor Winkler noted that pangolins displayed the highest spike binding energy of all the animals in the study – significantly higher than bats, monkeys and snakes.
“While it was incorrectly suggested early in the pandemic by some scientists that they had found SARS-CoV-2 in pangolins, this was due to a misunderstanding and this claim was rapidly retracted as the pangolin coronavirus they described had less than 90% genetic similarity to SARS-CoV-2 and hence could not be its ancestor,” Prof Petrovsky said.
Similarity in spike proteins
As shown in this and other studies, the specific part of the pangolin coronavirus spike protein that binds to ACE2 was almost identical to its SARS-CoV-2 counterpart.
“This sharing of the almost identical spike protein almost certainly explains why SARS-CoV-2 binds so well to pangolin ACE2. Pangolin and SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins may have evolved similarities through a process of convergent evolution, genetic recombination between viruses, or through genetic engineering, with no current way to distinguish between these possibilities,” Prof Petrovsky said.
“Overall, putting aside the intriguing pangolin ACE2 results, our study showed that the COVID-19 virus was very well adapted to infect humans.”
“We also deduced that some domesticated animals like cats, dogs and cows are likely to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection too,” Prof Winkler added.
The question of how the virus came to infect humans currently has two main explanations. The virus may have jumped to humans from bats through an intermediary animal which remains to be identified. The other explanation making headlines in the media is an accidental release from a virology lab, where it perhaps was created in ‘gain of function‘ tests, which are carried out around the world to better understand pathogens. A number of organisations and governments, including the World Health Organization and the United States have urged further investigation to find out which of these is correct — though a definitive answer may take years. How and where the SARS-CoV-2 virus adapted to become such an effective human pathogen remains a mystery, the researchers concluded, adding that finding the origins of the disease will help efforts to protect humanity against future coronavirus pandemics.
Journal information: Sakshi Piplani et al, In silico comparison of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species and implications for virus origin, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92388-5
As interest mounts in the ‘lab leak’ hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, more scientists are starting to take it seriously, especially because of the important implications of its actual origins.
MedPage Today reported that many experts it approached for the story were hesitant to speculate on its exact implications, they agreed that further research into its origins is important to ward off future pandemics.
A natural origin’s implications
Back in 2007, scientists who were studying coronaviruses warned: “The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV–like viruses in horseshoe bats… is a time bomb. The possibility of the re-emergence of SARS and other novel viruses… should not be ignored.”
On May 26 2021, in the midst of the greatest disaster the world has faced since World War II, US President Joe Biden gave US intelligence 90 days to reach a “definitive conclusion” on the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Vincent Racaniello, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, said finding an answer is unlikely within Biden’s deadline. After all, it took 14 years to find the ancestor of the first SARS virus in wildlife.
For Prof Racaniello, this renewed concern underscores the need for better surveillance of viruses in wildlife.
“All human viruses begin in nature. There’s an overwhelming preponderance of data that shows that, so it makes sense to look in nature when we’re looking for the source of new viruses,” Prof Racaniello told MedPage Today.
As a result of human population pressure, more viruses are spilling over into humans from nature. Examples of this include Ebola, SARS-1, MERS, and bird and swine flu. Because of the evolutionary closeness of mammals and humans, they are major pathogen sources. Rodents and bats (accounting for 20% of mammals), as well as various species of birds are good places to look. However our surveillance of wildlife is spotty, so we have “very little” understanding of the viruses these types of animals harbour, and which ones could be threats to humans, Prof Racaniello warned.
“We need to do more wildlife sampling, to find out what’s out there and what’s potentially a threat,” he said. “More investment in this could have prevented the trillions of dollars that we’ve spent to take care of this pandemic.”
A lab leak’s implications
On the other hand, Richard Ebright, PhD, a molecular biologist and professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, believes the real issue lies in addressing the potential for future pandemics that could originate from lab accidents, a discussion that “needs to begin now.”
“Irrespective of whether COVID originated in a natural accident or a lab accident, the risk of a future pandemic originating in a lab accident is real,” he told MedPage Today.
Prof Ebright explained that, in the US and other countries, only voluntary biosafety guidelines exist, and these are about preventing accidental release of pathogens. While the US has legal regulations against several pathogens that could be used as biological weapons, there are no biosecurity regulations for other pathogens. In most of the world, no biosecurity regulations exist for pathogens other than smallpox, not even voluntary ones, Prof Ebright said.
In 2017, the US implemented a bio-risk policy requiring a risk-benefit analysis before federal funding can be approved for high-risk research, such as ‘gain of function’ research that could be used to increase a pathogen’s transmissibility or pathogenicity to better understand and control it, Prof Ebright said. But this bio-risk policy has been essentially ignored by federal agencies, and the other countries with bio-risk policies only apply it to smallpox.
“Discussion now, especially among policy makers and the public, needs to turn to the inadequacy of biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk-assessment standards worldwide, and to the essentially complete absence of biosafety regulation worldwide,” he said.
The return of the lab leak hypothesis
While evidence is largely circumstantial, the basic idea is that a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been experimenting on a virus called RaTG13 (a coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2, which infects horseshoe bats), and genetically manipulating other horseshoe bat viruses collected around China. It is thought that one of these laboratory viruses could have infected a staffer at the institute, who then transmitted it to the broader public, Dr Ebright explained.
Following the WHO’s March 30 SARS-CoV-2 origins investigation report, there was a sudden about-face and the lab leak theory began to be taken seriously. Though investigators classified a laboratory origin as “extremely unlikely”, they said the conclusion was reached on the evidence made available.
Even the Director-General of the WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said at the time that he did not believe the assessment of a laboratory origin was “extensive enough,” that this hypothesis “requires further investigation,” and that “this report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end.”
“At this point in time, all scientific data related to the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of COVID are equally consistent with a natural-accident origin or a laboratory-accident origin,” Ebright said.
While the WHO report does not propose a follow-up study for laboratory origins, it acknowledges that both “follow-up of new evidence” and “regular administrative and internal review of high-level biosafety laboratories worldwide” is needed.
US President Joe Biden has ordered intelligence officials to “redouble” their efforts in investigating the origins of COVID, as well as the theory that it was a ‘lab leak’ in China.
This comes days after details of a US intelligence report emerged in the Wall Street Journal, claiming that three doctors working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had fallen ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019 – about when epidemiologists believe SARS-CoV-2 first began circulating in humans.
Mr Biden said the US intelligence community was divided on whether it was the result of a lab accident, or from jumping from human to animal. Mr Biden asked the groups to report back to him within 90 days.
China’s embassy in the US made a warning statement posted on its website, without mentioning the president’s remarks. “Smear campaigns and blame shifting are making a comeback, and the conspiracy theory of ‘lab leak’ is resurfacing. “To politicise origin tracing, a matter of science, will not only make it hard to find the origin of the virus, but give free rein to the ‘political virus’ and seriously hamper international cooperation on the pandemic,” it said.
Authorities linked early COVID cases to a seafood market in Wuhan, leading scientists to theorise the virus first passed to humans from animals.
Why now?
In a White House statement released on Wednesday, President Biden said he had asked for a report on the origins of COVID after taking office, “including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident”. He asked for “additional follow-up” on receiving the report.
Mr Biden said most of the intelligence community had “coalesced” around those two scenarios, but “do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other”.
The president has now asked agencies to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyse information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion”, and report to him within 90 days.
He concluded by saying the US would “keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence”.
Beijing meanwhile has previously suggested a possible US lab origin for COVID. The Chinese embassy said it supported a full investigation into “some secretive bases and biological laboratories all over the world”.
Mr Biden’s statement coincided with a CNN report that the president’s administration earlier this year shut down a state department investigation into a possible lab leak origin.
The ‘lab leak’ theory
When they first arose last year, the laboratory leak allegations were widely dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory, with many US media outlets describing the claims as debunked or false after then-President Donald Trump said COVID had originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Two months ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a joint report with Chinese scientists on COVIDs origins, rating the likelihood of an accidental lab release as “extremely unlikely”. However the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he was not satisfied that the investigation had looked at this possibility enough to rate. The investigation only stirred up more interest in the ‘lab leak’ theory, with 18 scientists signing an open letter calling for more investigation before it could be ruled out.
There is little evidence for the ‘lab leak’ theory in the public domain however, and intelligence reports such as the one the Wall Street Journal based its story on are often of unproven provenance.
Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci still believes that COVID jumped from animals to humans, though this month he admitted he was no longer confident COVID had developed naturally. Mounting pressure
Mr Biden’s statement comes the day after Xavier Becerra, US secretary for health and human services, urged the WHO to ensure a “transparent” investigation into the virus’s origins.
“Phase 2 of the Covid origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak,” Mr Becerra said.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump sought to take credit in an emailed statement to the New York Post, saying: “To me it was obvious from the beginning but I was badly criticised, as usual. Now they are all saying: ‘He was right.'”
