Lab leak or not, Covid’s mysteries still need solving

Regardless of whether Covid-19 escaped from a research facility, another deadly virus very well might

NEWS that the US Department of Energy now believes that the virus that causes Covid-19 escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, won’t resolve the ill-tempered debate over how a pandemic that has killed nearly seven million people began. But it should spur policymakers and scientists to stop politicising the issue and get serious about preventing another catastrophe.

This latest twist won’t end the mystery of where Covid-19 originated. Energy Department officials didn’t detail what new evidence changed their minds or why they only have “low confidence” in their conclusions. Meanwhile, none of the US intelligence agencies that subscribe to the competing theory — that the virus jumped naturally from animals to humans in a case of zoonotic transmission — have altered their assessments. The World Health Organisation (WHO) seems no closer to render- ing a verdict one way or another. It recently suspended its own investigation into the roots of the pandemic because of stonewalling by China.

The world shouldn’t give up hope of finding answers. Understanding exactly how Covid-19 emerged remains critical to patching the vulnerabilities that led to the pandemic.

China has certainly been the biggest obstacle to a credible inquiry — irrationally so, given how vulnerable its billion-plus citizens are to future outbreaks. But politics have warped the debate in the US, too, where some Republicans have hyped the lab-leak theory to bash China, while many Democrats and researchers have been too quick to dismiss the idea out of hand.

Policymakers would benefit from an open-minded, bipartisan reexamination of the current evidence, as well as a closer look at what US agencies and researchers who previously worked with counterparts in Wuhan might know about experiments there.

More important, there’s no need to await conclusive results before addressing the real and growing risks posed by research into potentially deadly viruses. The number of maximum-containment laboratories globally is increasing, as are the dangers of the experiments conducted within them.

In the US, the regulations governing such research are a patchwork, with only the deadliest pathogens strictly controlled and privately funded experiments mostly free of government supervision. Two working groups at the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity recently proposed a slew of changes to how so-called dual-use research — involving potentially dangerous pathogens or knowledge that could be maliciously used — is governed in the US; Congress should work with the White House to ensure such experiments meet the highest safety standards.

Global cooperation is also needed. Biosafety rules vary widely by country, as do funding levels and training. A common international standard for dealing with hazardous biological materials was developed in 2019; the WHO should be tasked with ensuring compliance with it.

Countries including the US and China would also be wise to discuss common limits on “gain of function” experiments, in which pathogens are tweaked to increase their deadliness or transmissibility. While there may be circumstances in which such research is useful, the risks to all should be patently obvious.

Finally, the renewed focus on a potential lab leak should not divert attention from the need to defend better against old-fashioned zoonotic transmission. Given the number of viruses in the wild — of which only 1% may have been identified — countries need to establish much better surveillance networks, limit habitat destruction and cooperate to curb the trade in animals that are potential vectors of disease.

If Covid has taught the world one thing, it’s that the risk of another serious outbreak — whether birthed in a biosafety lab or a bat cave — can’t be ignored. — Bloomberg