Covid-19 lab leak: We don’t know how the pandemic started but can prevent the

The origins of the novel coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic remain a mystery. US intelligence agencies have now completed a 90-day probe into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, but their classified findings, according to the New York Times, were inconclusive as to whether the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, or made a natural jump from an animal into a human.

Yet to prevent the next pandemic, scientists don’t need a definitive answer about the genesis of Covid-19. Regardless of how the coronavirus outbreak started, researchers say the world urgently needs to do more to prevent both lab leaks and so-called “spillover” infections from animals. Tracing the route of the virus is an important scientific question, but countries can and should take steps to reduce these risks now, even without a final answer.

“We don’t have to wait for all these results to start acting,” said Andrew Weber, senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks and a former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs under President Barack Obama. “There’s some big policy decisions that we can make now.”

Right now, the Covid-19 pandemic is continuing to rage around the world; dozens of countries are fighting the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, and many are struggling to get enough vaccines to protect themselves. Figuring out just where the virus came from would do little to mitigate the current crisis.

It may be years before the world gets a satisfying answer, and one may never emerge. But in the meantime, from regulating wildlife markets to transparency around biological research, there are many measures that can reduce the risk of future outbreaks.

Both spillovers and laboratory leaks of pathogens have happened before

There were warnings that humanity was at risk of a pandemic even before Covid-19, and at several points the world has come scarily close.

Several dangerous pathogens have escaped laboratories in the past and gone on to infect people. In 1977, an outbreak of H1N1 influenza erupted on the border between China and the Soviet Union. Based on a genetic analysis of the strain, many researchers concluded the virus escaped from a lab. Smallpox, meanwhile, was eradicated from the wild in 1977; the following year, Janet Parker, a photographer at Birmingham Medical School in the UK, became infected and later died. The building she worked in housed a research laboratory where scientists were studying smallpox.

In 2004, at least two unnamed researchers contracted the SARS virus at the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing. One of the researchers went on to infect her mother, who later died, as well as a nurse at the hospital where her mother was treated. The outbreak led to 1,000 people being quarantined or placed under medical supervision. At the time, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported there may have been similar outbreaks of SARS in Taiwan and Singapore that also may have originated in labs.