Post by Admin on Feb 28, 2023 20:18:22 GMT
Since the first cases of a mysterious new respiratory illness were recorded in China in late 2019, scientists have come to know the pathogen named SARS-CoV-2 (along with its Greek-letter variants) with an uncommon intimacy. With astonishing speed, they decoded its genetic architecture and, using that knowledge, created treatments and vaccines that have reduced the pandemic to a background concern in many parts of the world.
Yet more than three years after the advent of the coronavirus, the most fundamental question remains: Just where did it come from?
At first, investigators pointed to China’s trade in exotic animals. A wildlife market in Wuhan, a city in Hubei province, emerged as the potential site of the original transmission. And a little-known creature, the pangolin, was widely suspected as having served as the unwitting vehicle of zoonosis, or animal-to-human transfer of the coronavirus.
But a faction of investigators has insistently maintained that the virus spilled out from a laboratory such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, perhaps as the result of an accident. While their argument was at first dismissed as conspiratorial and xenophobic, it gained currency throughout 2021 and 2022, especially as genetic data seemed to point — circumstantially, but persuasively — to evidence of human engineering.
Today, the scientific community generally remains behind the zoonotic hypothesis: that is, that the virus jumped from animals to humans at the wildlife market, or at some other point of contact between species.
Yet evidence for the lab leak narrative is only building.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the federal Department of Energy — whose ranks include highly trained biologists — has revised its estimate to reflect growing (if still tenuous) confidence that the virus emerged from a Chinese laboratory. Other agencies disagree with that assessment; the development seemed only to underscore how contentious the question of how the pandemic began remains.
It is not entirely clear what led the Energy Department to revise its estimate; the update delivered recently to members of the Biden administration and congressional leaders says agency investigators now have “low confidence” in a lab leak origin for COVID-19.
For intelligence analysts, a low-confidence assessment is one based on highly incomplete evidence. Still, the shift indicates that evidence could be shifting in favor of a lab leak.
An intelligence official told the Journal that the Department of Energy revisions were based on what Saturday’s report described as “new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government.”
Four other agencies have expressed “low confidence” in a zoonotic origin, meaning that they believe the coronavirus came from a wildlife market but lack the evidence to make a more definitive declaration. According to the New York Times, those agencies reviewed the new evidence provided by the Department of Energy but chose to stay with their original assessment.
In other words, disagreement remains.
“There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started,” Kirby acknowledged on Monday.
Yet more than three years after the advent of the coronavirus, the most fundamental question remains: Just where did it come from?
At first, investigators pointed to China’s trade in exotic animals. A wildlife market in Wuhan, a city in Hubei province, emerged as the potential site of the original transmission. And a little-known creature, the pangolin, was widely suspected as having served as the unwitting vehicle of zoonosis, or animal-to-human transfer of the coronavirus.
But a faction of investigators has insistently maintained that the virus spilled out from a laboratory such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, perhaps as the result of an accident. While their argument was at first dismissed as conspiratorial and xenophobic, it gained currency throughout 2021 and 2022, especially as genetic data seemed to point — circumstantially, but persuasively — to evidence of human engineering.
Today, the scientific community generally remains behind the zoonotic hypothesis: that is, that the virus jumped from animals to humans at the wildlife market, or at some other point of contact between species.
Yet evidence for the lab leak narrative is only building.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the federal Department of Energy — whose ranks include highly trained biologists — has revised its estimate to reflect growing (if still tenuous) confidence that the virus emerged from a Chinese laboratory. Other agencies disagree with that assessment; the development seemed only to underscore how contentious the question of how the pandemic began remains.
It is not entirely clear what led the Energy Department to revise its estimate; the update delivered recently to members of the Biden administration and congressional leaders says agency investigators now have “low confidence” in a lab leak origin for COVID-19.
For intelligence analysts, a low-confidence assessment is one based on highly incomplete evidence. Still, the shift indicates that evidence could be shifting in favor of a lab leak.
An intelligence official told the Journal that the Department of Energy revisions were based on what Saturday’s report described as “new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government.”
Four other agencies have expressed “low confidence” in a zoonotic origin, meaning that they believe the coronavirus came from a wildlife market but lack the evidence to make a more definitive declaration. According to the New York Times, those agencies reviewed the new evidence provided by the Department of Energy but chose to stay with their original assessment.
In other words, disagreement remains.
“There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started,” Kirby acknowledged on Monday.