Answers prove elusive as scientists weigh lab leak or animal source for COVID

More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged in Wuhan, China, the origin of the virus behind the global pandemic remained a topic of heated debate and frustrating uncertainty at a Senate hearing Tuesday, with Republicans and Democrats accusing the Chinese and U.S. governments of covering up critical details of the outbreak.

Four scientists testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the pandemic began either as a laboratory leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or as a natural “spillover” from a wild animal at a market in the same Chinese city.

The COVID pandemic killed an estimated 7 million people worldwide, including more than 1 million in the United States, and caused some $20 trillion in economic damage.

American intelligence agencies that investigated the controversy have been unable to determine the virus origin. Most agencies suspect the virus outbreak began naturally, with the Energy Department and FBI intelligence units reporting the virus most likely escaped from the Wuhan laboratory.

China’s government has adamantly denied the lab leak theory and thwarted international investigators from learning details of the virus origin. The regime removed an online database at the Wuhan Institute that could have provided clues to the outbreak, the scientists at the hearing said.

The Biden administration also blocked lawmakers from obtaining information from records and documents related to the virus origin, senators said.

Committee Chairman Seen. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat, said finding the cause of the COVID pandemic was a matter of national security and that the government needed to better protect Americans from future biological incidents.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the committee’s ranking Republican, said the critical question to be learned is whether the virus emanated from the laboratory.

“Do we know for certain that came from the lab? No. But there’s a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab,” Mr. Paul said.

Mr. Paul said early on in the pandemic a group of American scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci who until recently was the federal government’s leading virus expert, worked aggressively to label the notion of a laboratory source for the SARS-COV-2 virus an unfounded conspiracy theory. Today, the origin of the virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of two leading theories. The second is an animal source for the virus.

Private emails among federal health authorities in the early weeks of the pandemic show that many scientists worked behind the scenes in medical journals and social media to discredit all public discussion of the Wuhan laboratory as an origin point, Mr. Paul said.

“The cover-up went beyond public statements. Federal agencies and key officials withheld and continue to conceal crucial information from both Congress and the public,” he said.

Steven Quay, a virus specialist formerly at Stanford University, and Richard Ebright, a virus expert at Rutgers University, told lawmakers there is no evidence supporting the theory that the virus originated in animals in China. Both these scientists said the preponderance of evidence convinced them the virus began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, emanating from risky “gain of function” research there and the collection of a large number of bat coronaviruses at the lab.

The SARS-COV-2 virus that causes COVID is a bat coronavirus.

But two other virus experts testifying Tuesday, Gregory Koblentz from George Mason University and Robert Garry from Tulane University, said they are convinced the virus most likely began at the Huanan wild animal market in Wuhan. Dr. Koblentz said the available evidence points most strongly to an animal origin, although a research-related accident cannot be ruled out and criticized what he said was the failure to share key data by China’s Communist regime.

“A key obstacle to more definitive conclusion is the lack of transparency exercised by the Chinese government which affects assessments of both potential pathways to the pandemic,” he said. “Until there’s an independent international transparent investigation, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to come up with a more definitive conclusion.”

Dr. Koblentz said it is difficult to pin down the origin of a pandemic and the hunt often takes years.

Dr. Garry said the first SARS-related outbreak in China in 2004 came from the wildlife animal trade and therefore the pandemic likely started again from animals at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan.

Samples obtained at the southwest corner of the market included genetic material from raccoon dogs and palm civets that Dr. Garry said showed “commingling” with the SARS-COV-2 virus that is “not compatible with a lab leak.”

Six reasons to suspect the lab

Dr. Quay, in his testimony, identified six reasons the virus came from the laboratory, including evidence the virus was circulating in Wuhan and other parts of the world months before a case surfaced at the wild animal market.

“The evidence includes the calculation of the time for the most recent common ancestor; hospital overloads in Wuhan; antibodies and patients from Italy, Spain in the U.S.; wastewater samples from Brazil; sick athletes at the October Wuhan military games; school closings in Wuhan, and dozens of documented patients,” Dr. Quay said. “This dismisses out of hand the market as the origin.”

Dr. Ebright said he based his view of a laboratory leak on publicly available documents, press reports and scientific papers and his research experience work on experience and work on biosafety, biosecurity and bio-risk management regarding work on pathogens.

Four key facts supported his assessment, including the fact that COVID emerged in Wuhan, a city 800 miles from the closest area harboring a SARS-COV-2-like virus that could have been a cause for the actual pandemic virus. The Wuhan Institute of Virology also was conducting the world’s largest research program on SARS-like viruses and had the largest collection of viruses similar to SARS-COV-2, including one that is very similar to the actual virus.

The evidence points “away from a natural origin of COVID,” he said. “And Wuhan’s status as the global epicenter of research on bat SARS viruses points toward a research origin of COVID.”

Also, virus research proposals presented to the National Institute of Health and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Agency by a contractor “make an extremely strong case, a smoking gun, for research origin,” he said.

Dr. Garry came under fire from Republicans during the hearing for his role in producing an opinion article in a medical journal dismissing the lab leak theory in the earliest days of the COVID outbreak.

Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, criticized Dr. Garry for his role in organizing a group of scientists who attempted to discredit the lab leak theory in a 2020 Nature Medicine article.

“You said at the time that definitively SARS-COV-2 is not a laboratory construct,” Mr. Hawley said. “Of course, our own government key agencies have concluded otherwise.”

Mr. Hawley said Dr. Fauci used the Nature article to “mobilize” the federal government to censor people and have them silenced on social media for discussing the laboratory leak theory.

“I think one of the worst things that happened in the COVID era is that our own government deliberately withheld information from us from the American people, tried to propagandize the American people, used the arms and agencies of government to actively censor Americans who dared to question the propaganda and they’re still lying to us,” Mr. Hawley said.

Mr. Hawley said he sponsored legislation that was passed by Congress requiring the declassification of intelligence on the virus origin, but the government so far has refused to make the information available.

Dr. Garry responded that he agrees that more intelligence information should be released and defended his role in writing the Nature article.

“All we did was write a paper in Nature Medicine, 3,000 words,” he said.

Mr. Peters, the committee chair, said China has provided “relatively little or nothing” on the virus’ origin. Dr. Koblentz said China could provide a range of information that would be useful for determining the origin of the pandemic.

The information could include virus samples from the Wuhan market and elsewhere in Wuhan and other areas on animal samples.

The Chinese have released some information but not raw data. China also should provide records of research at the Wuhan Institute and medical surveillance on researchers and maintenance records on the operation of bio containment equipment, Dr. Koblentz said.

The Chinese government has denied the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has accused the United States of introducing the virus in China through the military games in Wuhan and through frozen food — both theories that the U.S. government has rejected.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.