Not knowing Covid's origins should only encourage discussions about lab safety.
 | By David Wallace-Wells Opinion Writer |
The world is now nearly three years, and perhaps 20 million deaths, into the Covid-19 pandemic, and we still don't have a clear story about how it all began. |
That is a very strange epistemological limbo, one that will likely continue for the foreseeable future, given the way investigations into the pandemic's origins have been stalled and stonewalled. When The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that a research group within the Department of Energy had reached the conclusion that the coronavirus had most likely escaped from a Chinese lab, it was merely the latest sign of disagreement and uncertainty both inside the U.S. intelligence community and outside: There is no genuine proof, one way or the other, leaving us to apply our own prejudices and biases to a story that doesn't quite seem to fit together. |
As I write in my own newsletter this week, it is also strange how little we have really reckoned with what it means that, in the absence of that proof, a lab origin remains possible — allowing the debate over the cause of the pandemic to sideline conversations about lab safety rather than provoke them. |
For years, the public discourse about the source of the virus has implied that we need to resolve the question before moving on to what we should be doing about it. But that is a paralyzing standard and a nonsensical one. If there is just a 1 percent chance that the pandemic was the result of a lab accident, that is a very strong argument for taking action to prevent future accidents, which the world as a whole has done very little of. In fact, according to a forthcoming report by the Global Biolabs Initiative, the number of laboratories operating or under construction where the riskiest experiments are done, Biosafety Level 4 labs, has grown significantly just over the last year — from 59 globally, last May, to 69 today. Many of those new labs are the first for their countries, and even in places with more experience, the authors of the new report told me, oversight and safety protocols are patchwork at best. |
To worry about that, or believe we should be doing much more to prevent laboratory accidents, you don't need to believe in a Wuhan lab leak, or a cover-up orchestrated by Beijing, or the coordination of American scientists to suppress debate. You just need to know that the question remains open, as even Anthony Fauci now acknowledges it is. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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