“Does it matter where Covid-19 comes from?” asks a recent headline at FiveThirtyEight.
Yes. Hell yes. Insert-bad-word-here yes.
Because if the virus has a zoonotic origin and the whole global pandemic started because some poacher, animal smuggler, or wet-market vendor caught the virus, then all the lab-safety improvements in the world aren’t going to do a darn thing to prevent another pandemic.
And if the pandemic really did start because some researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology wasn’t careful one day, then all the efforts to crack down on poachers and animal smugglers and to clean up wet markets aren’t going to do a darn thing to prevent another pandemic.
[I’ll make it even plainer: It matters because it now seems likely that COVID came from gain-of-function research that had been barred at one point because of the high risk of creating exactly the kind of global pandemic we all just experienced. And if the lab-leak theory is correct and suppressed, GOF research will continue and eventually create *another* global pandemic. That’s the reason that the origin %£$*&^% matters. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member