Origin of SARS-CoV-2
[citation needed] In July 2022, two papers published in Science described novel epidemiological and genetic evidence that suggested the pandemic likely began at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and did not come from a laboratory.
[15][16][17] While there are multiple proposed explanations for how SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into and evolved adaptations suited to human populations, there is significant evidence and agreement that the most likely original viral reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 is horseshoe bats.
The first investigation conducted in China was by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, responding to hospitals reporting cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology, resulting in the closure of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on 1 January 2020 for sanitation and disinfection.
[53] On the sixteenth, George Gao, the former head of the CCDC and lead author on the February 2022 preprint, told Science that there was "nothing new" in the raw data, and refused to answer questions about why his research team had removed it from the database.
On 6 February 2020, the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a meeting of "experts, world class geneticists, coronavirus experts, and evolutionary biologists", to "assess what data, information and samples are needed to address the unknowns, in order to understand the evolutionary origins of COVID-19 and more effectively respond to both the outbreak and any resulting information".
[72][73] On 18 January, the US called on China to allow the WHO's expert team to interview "care givers, former patients and lab workers" in the city of Wuhan, drawing a rebuke from the Chinese government.
Mirroring concerns raised by the Trump administration, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that it was essential that the WHO-convened report be independent and "free from alteration by the Chinese government".
[78] On 26 May 2021, President Joe Biden directed the U.S. intelligence community to produce a report within 90 days on whether the COVID-19 virus originated from human contact with an infected animal or from an accidental lab leak,[79] stating his national security staff said there is insufficient evidence to determine either hypothesis to be more likely.
[85] Yuan Zhiming, director of the WIV's Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, responded in the Global Times, a Chinese state media outlet, that the "claims are groundless".
[89] The resurgence of the theory of a laboratory accident was fueled in part by the publication, in May 2021, of early emails between Anthony Fauci and scientists discussing the issue, before deliberate manipulation was ruled out as of March 2020.
Bill Foster, an Illinois Democrat who chaired the hearing, said the Chinese government's lack of transparency is not in itself evidence of a lab leak and cautioned that answers may not be known even after the administration produces its intelligence report.
[94] In February 2023, the United States Energy Department updated its assessment on the origins of the virus, shifting from "undecided" to "low confidence" in favor of a laboratory leak.
[113][114] In response to the WHO's June 2022 report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the lab leak theory "a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes, which has nothing to do with science".
[74][118] Members of the team included Thea Fisher, John Watson, Marion Koopmans, Dominic Dwyer, Vladimir Dedkov, Hung Nguyen-Viet, Fabian Leendertz, Peter Daszak, Farag El Moubasher, and Ken Maeda.
Daszak is the head of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies spillover events, and has been a longtime collaborator of over 15 years with Shi Zhengli, Wuhan Institute of Virology's director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.
[124] In February 2021, after conducting part of their study, the WHO stated that the likely origin of COVID-19 was a zoonotic event from a virus circulating in bats, likely through another animal carrier, and that the time of transmission to humans was likely towards the end of 2019.
[139] In the United States, calls to investigate a laboratory leak reached "fever pitch", fueling aggressive rhetoric resulting in antipathy towards people of Asian ancestry,[139][140] and the bullying of scientists.
[141][142][143] The European Union, United States, and 13 other countries criticised the WHO-convened study, calling for transparency from China and access to the raw data and original samples.
[146] In a letter published in Science, a number of scientists, including Ralph Baric, argued that the accidental laboratory leak hypothesis had not been sufficiently investigated and remained possible, calling for greater clarity and additional data.
[147][148] Their letter was criticized by some virologists and public health experts, who said that a "hostile" and "divisive" focus on the WIV was unsupported by evidence, and would cause Chinese scientists and authorities to share less, rather than more data.
On 16 July 2021, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian declared that China's position was that future investigations should be conducted elsewhere and should focus on cold chain transmission and the US military's labs.
[113] In November 2020, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, appointed economist Jeffrey Sachs as chair of its COVID-19 Commission, with wide-ranging goals relating to the virus and pandemic.
[160] On 25 September 2021, the task force work was folded after procedural concerns and a need to broaden its scope to examine transparency and government regulation of risky laboratory research.
[157] In September 2022, the Lancet commission published a wide-ranging report on the pandemic, including commentary on the virus origin overseen by the group's chairman, economist Jeffrey Sachs.
[164] Virologist David Robertson said the invocation of US laboratory involvement was "wild speculation" and that "it's really disappointing to see such a potentially influential report contributing to further misinformation on such an important topic".
[171][172] In September 2024, a study published in Cell found genetic evidence that COVID-19 may have originated from the illegal trade of infected raccoon dogs in Wuhan, China, supporting the zoonotic transmission scenario.
[175][176] A few days later, German chancellor Angela Merkel also pressed China for transparency about the origin of the coronavirus, following similar concerns raised by the French president Emmanuel Macron.
"[181][182] In June 2021, at the G7 summit in Cornwall, the attending leaders issued a joint statement calling for a new investigation, citing China's refusal to cooperate with certain aspects of the original WHO-convened study.
[90] Public health analysts have remarked that the debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is fueling unnecessary confrontation, resulting in bullying and harassment of scientists,[185] and is deepening existing geopolitical tensions and hindering collaboration at a time where such mutual cooperation is required, both to deal with the current pandemic and in preparation for future such outbreaks.
[190] In response to this letter, in a communication published in the same journal, a small group of researchers opposed the idea that scientists should promote unity and called for openness to alternative hypotheses.
