From the desk of Dr. Gupta

Unlocking the mysteries of the exact origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 and launched a global pandemic in March 2020, has become one of the most burning questions in the scientific community. But the effort, like so many other coronavirus-related issues, has become hotly contested, fraught with implications for international relations and, in the United States at least, laced with conspiracy theories and politically-motivated posturing.

 

But here’s what we know. There’s precedence for pandemics. We know from SARS, MERS and Ebola that there are viruses out in nature that can make the jump to humans and cause a cascade of human tragedy. But finding these links can take time.

 

From the time of the first infections of SARS to the time it was traced to a horseshoe bat took about 15 years. We still don’t know where Ebola came from.

 

We also know that as humans, there’s a lot that we are doing to encourage these zoonotic jumps. The closest viral relatives to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, live in bats.

 

And there’s a lot in our own human behavior that encourages these zoonotic jumps -- going from animals to humans; the wildlife trade and our movement into more and more of their habitats.

 

But we also know there’s a precedent for accidental lab leaks. And while there has never been an epidemic that has started from an accidental lab leak, we know that in 2004, for example, researchers in Beijing studying the original SARS virus became infected, and spread it to 7 others before the outbreak was contained. In 2014, poor handling of samples of anthrax led to accidental exposures of more than 80 people.

 

We also know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was investigating bat-related coronaviruses. The city of Wuhan is about 1,000 miles away from the location where all the most closely related coronaviruses can be found.

 

At the moment, there are a lot more questions than answers. How can we tell that the virus is natural and not manipulated? How do we know there may not have been earlier cases of illness than when the outbreaks were first reported in December? Do we know all the viruses that were studied at the lab?

 

Understanding the "why" to these questions is important not just for understanding the history of how this pandemic unfolded; it’s imperative in preventing the next pandemic. We can only learn from our history. We need to take the politics out and look at what the science says so that we can prevent the next pandemic.