Where Did COVID-19 Come From?

With no proof of origin in a lab or an animal, experts have taken sides and dug themselves in

- FRED GUTERL

IN EARLY 2020, AS THE PANDEMIC WAS LOOMING, Dr. Anthony Fauci corresponded with a group of scientists about the possibility that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. After conference call, the scientists published a paper downplaying the lab-leak theory.

Jim Jordan, a Republican representative from Ohio who began questioning witnesses on Wednesday in the House hearings on the origin of the pandemic, has his own way of weaving those facts into a narrative. It's a story of gross malfeasance, with Fauci as villain.

The best thing about the debate over the origin of COVID-19-or the worst thing, depending on your point of view is that it provides great fodder for constructing narratives. Consider one alternative view of Fauci's actions. Amid the worst public health crisis in a century, perhaps it was wise of him to consult with evolutionary biologists and virologists about the possible causes of the pandemic. And although downplaying the lab-leak idea seems, in hindsight, like bad policy (which Newsweek reported in April 2020), at the time, with the U.S. depending on precious information from Beijing, it might have seemed smart to avoid alienating the Chinese government.

We all tell stories, but when it comes to the origins of COVID-19, the possibilities are particularly rich not just in the House chambers but throughout the debate. Over the past few years, experts seem to have gravitated to one side of the question or the other and dug themselves in.

They can do this because the debate lacks dispositive evidence one way or the other. There is no proof that the virus originated in a lab, and no proof that it emerged as a spillover from nature. What we have instead is a smorgasbord of facts from which to assemble arguments, one way or the other, to suit ourselves.