Three full years into the COVID-19 pandemic and the world still doesn’t have a firm answer about where the virus came from.
People who have been studying coronaviruses and other viruses for decades say it’s overwhelmingly likely the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from animals, just as the 2002-2004 SARS virus did, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS virus did, as Ebola does, and as most influenza viruses do.
But there’s no smoking gun- no animal being sold for food that carries the virus and that could conceivably have been the source of the pandemic. And that makes people suspicious and leads to speculation that a laboratory leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China could have been the source.
Dr. Felicia Goodrum, professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Virology, argues that the tone of the current debate is harmful and undermines trust in science.
“The result has fueled public confusion and, in many instances, ill-informed condemnation of virology. With this article, we seek to promote a return to rational discourse,” she and colleagues wrote in a recent commentary in the Journal of Virology.
“COVID-19 has cast a harsh light on the many cracks, fissures, and disparities in our public health system, and the inability to broadly come together to face a colossal crisis and focus on the needs of the most vulnerable,” they wrote.
Listen as Dr. Goodrum tells One World, One Health host Maggie Fox about what’s at stake.