[We dont need an answer before acting.]
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BEYOND THE PANDEMIC ORIGINS DEBATE  
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Caitlin Rivers
February 28, 2023
Force of Infection
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_ We don't need an answer before acting. _

COVID-19 Virus, Trinity Care Foundation (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

 

The Department of Energy, home to the country’s network of national
laboratories, recently briefed lawmakers on a new intelligence
assessment concluding that COVID-19 “most likely arose” from a
laboratory leak. They have “low confidence” in this conclusion,
perhaps due to sparse and poor-quality evidence. The report is not
publicly available; news of its topline conclusions was leaked
to media
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The DOE report is the latest in a series of inquiries and
investigations into the origins of the pandemic, which have been
fraught, to say the least. Some of the scientific inquiries have been
marred by unreported conflicts of interest, political interference,
and unprofessional conduct. Inquiries by government leaders have
suffered from partisan posturing and diplomatic stalemates.

I am not going to weigh in on the debate of the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
I think it’s unlikely we will ever know with any certainty how the
virus jumped into humans. The spillover event, in whatever form, was a
spark that ignited the pandemic more than three years ago. It takes
around five days for an infection progress to symptoms, so even the
first victim may not have known when and where they became infected.
Investigating the pandemic’s origins is worth undertaking, but we
should not wait for it to yield a definitive answer.

And frankly, the origins discussion is too toxic for all but the most
vociferous voices. Like many of my public health colleagues, I have
received a steady stream of threatening mail over the course of the
pandemic. It’s had the effect that the senders likely intended,
which is to discourage experts from participating in public
conversation. It’s a shame and I wish things were different, but
the personal costs of engaging are too heavy for many to bear.

I do have one suggestion for a path out of the quicksand: What if we
accepted that _plausibility_ of a lab leak is enough to act? It is
not a trial requiring a verdict. We do not need to confirm the
virus’s origins beyond all doubt before implementing preventive
measures. We can use lessons from the origins investigations to act
with commitment and urgency to preventing _future_ catastrophes.

Lab leaks can and occasionally do happen. The most famous examples
include a 1977 [[link removed]] influenza
epidemic suspected of originating in a lab or vaccine trial gone awry
in the USSR; a 1978
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in Birmingham, England that led to the death of a young woman; a 2007
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of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom and poliovirus in the
Netherlands just last year
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Even for SARS-CoV-2, most virology experts did not dismiss out of hand
the laboratory accident hypothesis, even if they have since concluded
that a natural origin is more likely. If it’s a scenario worth
considering, then it’s a scenario worth guarding against for the
future.

Biosafety and biosecurity experts have been calling for reforms and
additional protective measures for years. For example, many have
called for more oversight of experiments involving high consequence
pathogens, including gain of function research. More mechanisms are
needed to train, equip, and regulate laboratories in low-resourced
settings. Health security experts would like the Biological Weapons
Convention, and the scientific community, to adopt a code of conduct
for biological scientists. These recommendations, and the dozens more
waiting in the wings, are the solutions that policymakers would reach
for if the pandemic did originate in a laboratory. So, why not just
reach for them now?

The same line of thinking can be extended to natural origins. An
estimated 75% of emerging infectious disease
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or originating in animals, including SARS-CoV-2’s cousins, MERS, and
SARS. Spillover events happen when humans encounter animals. Changing
patterns of land use, hunting and consumption of wild game, and
intensive animal agriculture are just some of the drivers of these
spillover events. Implementing sustainable policies and practices in
these areas could reduce the risk of future outbreaks.   

We do not need to settle the question of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 to
agree on next steps. Even as we continue to investigate the start of
the pandemic, we can use the plausibility of origins scenarios as a
to-do list for improvement. We can—and we should—move forward with
the knowledge that we have to make the world a safer place, and we can
do that starting now.

_Caitlin Rivers is an Infectious disease epidemiology professor
specializing in epidemics, pandemics and biosecurity. Find me on
Twitter @cmyeaton._

_Force of Infection is a reader-supported publication. To receive new
posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber
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* pandemics
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* COVID-19
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* infectious diseases
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