PandemicLab Leak Theory Gains Momentum
On Wednesday, 26 May, President Joe Biden urged the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This is an about-face from the administration’s earlier reliance on the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate the origins of the pandemic. This is a shift from the assessment that the novel coronavirus emerged naturally, jumping from an animal species to humans.
On Wednesday, 26 May, President Joe Biden urged the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This is an about-face from the administration’s earlier reliance on the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
This is a shift from the assessment that the novel coronavirus emerged naturally, jumping from an animal species to humans.
Pandora Reportnotes that the theory that the virus may have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is gaining traction, but is far from conclusive. The Administration’s message follows a letter from eighteen prominent biologists, published in the journal Science, which calls for a new investigation into all conceivable origins of the novel coronavirus, and implores Chinese laboratories and agencies to “open their records” for independent analysis. The scientists write:
As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general, the United States and 13 other countries, and the European Union that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data. A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts.
Many researchers, however, find the tone of growing demands for an investigation to be “unsettling.” There are worries that the “volatility of the debate could thwart efforts to study the virus’s origins.” These demands are also exacerbating existing tensions between the United States and China — an unfortunate development, Pandora Report says, with crucial meetings about curbing the pandemic and preparing for future health emergencies underway and upcoming. “Global health policy experts assert that it is critical for the world to ‘work together to curb the pandemic and prepare the world for future outbreaks.’ Actions needed immediately include the expansion of vaccine distribution and the reform of biosecurity rules, such as standards for reporting virus-surveillance data,” Pandora Report writes.
