In late May, US intelligence was ordered to investigate the coronavirus’ origins. President Joe Biden gives intelligence agencies 90 days to review existing information, in addition to obtaining new information. The theory that the coronavirus accidentally escaped from a laboratory in China, because the Chinese authorities then tried to hide this, is among the questions Biden wants answered.
The theory was supported by then-President Donald Trump during the start of the pandemic, but was quickly dismissed as a conspiracy theory by scientists and journalists. Now, however, the wind has turned, and recently published Washington Post a correction in an article from February 2020. In the article, the newspaper accused the Republican Tom Cotton of repeating a “conspiracy theory that has already been rejected”. Now the article has been changed so that there is “no certainty about the origin of the virus”.
– Former US President Donald Trump was out early and supported the laboratory theory. Photo: Jonathan Drake / REUTERS
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– The fact that Donald Trump embraced this theory made it a divisive theme. Now that Trump is no longer president, it is suddenly a little more allowed to talk about this, says political scientist Daniel Drezner at Tufts University to Fincancial Times.
The change is also noticeable in social media, where Facebook until recently removed posts claiming that the coronavirus was man-made. However, that changed at the end of May.
– This is happening in light of the ongoing investigation of the coronavirus’ origin and after advice from public health experts, a spokesperson for Facebook said according to Politico.
WHO supports investigation
Several researchers, including Antony Fauci, still believe that the virus most likely originated in nature, where it was transmitted from animals to humans. Despite extensive research on the virus, no scientific evidence has been found to support laboratory theory.
– The leader of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, believes that the laboratory hypothesis should be investigated more thoroughly. Photo: Martial Trezzini / AP
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Nevertheless, many, including WHO leader Tedros Adhanom, feel that the theory cannot be ruled out until it has been thoroughly investigated.
“Although our investigators have concluded that the laboratory theory is the least likely, this requires further investigation,” Adhanom said during World Health Organization General Assembly at the end of March.
He is among those who welcome the US investigation, although several experts believe that it takes far more than 90 days to determine the origin of the coronavirus.
Report creates debate
There is also disagreement about the origin within American intelligence. according to The White House Two intelligence agencies believe that the virus probably originated in nature, while another agency tends to a laboratory.
– A majority of the intelligence community believes that there is not sufficient information to say that one is more likely than the other, the statement says.
– The Wuhan Institute of Virology was under strict guard when researchers from the WHO arrived in February. Photo: Thomas Peter / REUTERS
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A document that has made investigators close their eyes is a report from the State Department published towards the end of the Trump administration. The report, which was first mentioned in Wall Street Journal, claims that three researchers at a laboratory in Wuhan needed hospital treatment for respiratory problems as early as November 2019.
– The symptoms are reminiscent of both covid-19 and regular seasonal flu, the report states. The document does not conclude with what kind of disease the researchers had contracted, nor with how serious the disease was.
The report also claims that a laboratory in Wuhan conducted so-called “gain of function” studies, ie studies that give the virus a new biological function. In practice, this means that a virus can be made more contagious or deadly, and the study in Wuhan, according to the report, has been done with support from the USA. Director of the National Institute of Health, Francis Collins, denies, however that these studies have ever taken place.
Withheld information
In the statement, the Biden administration criticizes the Chinese authorities for lack of transparency about the virus, as the Trump administration did last year.
– The inability to get investigators into the field during the virus’ earlier phase will always be an obstacle to any investigation of covid-19, the White House states.
Already during the start of the pandemic withheld China information from the WHO. When the health organization’s experts were in Wuhan in January, the inhabitants of the city must have stayed threatened with silence.
China’s lack of transparency is frustrating for investigators, but neither is anything new from a country known for gagging freedom of speech. Although China keeps a lot hidden from the outside world, it does not necessarily mean that it hides something as specific as a laboratory accident.
– WHO researchers found little to suggest that the virus originated from the Wuhan laboratory. Photo: Hector Retamal / AFP
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– The problem is that when Biden asks for an investigation, in what is a very politically inflamed climate, it only becomes even less likely that China will cooperate in the work of finding the origin, says Yanzhong Huang, expert on global health at the foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
Probably occurred in nature
According to health researchers, the biggest reason for investigating laboratory theory is not that there is new evidence, but rather that no one has been able to prove that the coronavirus originated in other ways.
– It is still most likely that the virus came from a wild animal in the wild, says virologist Arinjay Banerjee to Associated Press. He points out that the transmission of viruses from animals to humans is common in nature, and that similar cases have already been seen with the viruses SARS1 and MERS.
The virologist, on the other hand, does not rule out that the laboratory theory may be true:
– You have probabilities, and then you have opportunities. Because no one has identified a virus that is completely identical to covid-19 in an animal, researchers can still ask themselves if there are other possibilities, says Banerjee.
May take a long time
Getting a definite confirmation of the origin of a virus is not always a quick, easy or at all possible task. For example, the origin of smallpox was never discovered before the disease vaccines eradicated the disease.
And while researchers in 2003 were able to find out that it was Asian snipe cats that had transmitted the SARS virus to humans, one had to wait until 2017 to establish that the virus originated among Chinese bats.
– Asian snipers transmitted the SARS virus to humans. Photo: Sigit Pamungkas / REUTERS
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The researchers therefore strongly doubt that they will be left with definitive answers after Biden’s 90 days are over.
– We rarely get “conclusive evidence”. Even under the best possible circumstances, one can rarely know anything with certainty, but our only degrees of probability, says epidemiologist Stephen Morse at Columbia University.
Regardless of the findings of US intelligence, they are likely to create debate. Especially if one finds new evidence that strengthens or weakens the laboratory theory.
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