Is it time to start believing in the COVID-19 ‘lab leak’ theory?

COVID-19 killed 68 lakh people worldwide. It brought the world to a complete standstill with every country being hit. But where is the accountability? Who is to blame and where did this deadly virus come from? China, yes, but the origins of the coronavirus remain a mystery three years on.

The debate over the contentions theory that SARS-CoV-2 came from a laboratory in Wuhan has been reignited with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) backing the claim. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief seems to agree but the White House is still being a tad bit cautious.

What is the COVID-19 lab leak theory?

It has been suspected that the novel coronavirus is manmade and did not emerge organically. It came from a laboratory in Wuhan in central China, where the first case was recorded.

According to the theory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a massive research institute, was studying coronavirus in bats for decades and it might have leaked triggering a pandemic. The facility is 40 minutes away from the Hunana wet market from where the first cluster of infections was reported.

Some say that the leak was deliberate and that it could have been engineered as a biological weapon. The theory first hit headlines early on in the pandemic when former US president Donald Trump said that the virus originated from the Wuhan lab.

In 2021, a classified US intelligence report, which was circulating in the media, said that three researchers at the Wuhan lab were hospitalised in November 2019. This was just before coronavirus started infecting people in the Chinese city, reports the BBC.

Also read: COVID-19 origin theories: Was there a lab leak in Wuhan or the US?

Why are we talking about it again?

An updated intelligence assessment about the origins of COVID-19 has refuelled the debate.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has assessed with “low confidence” it began with a lab leak, according to a person familiar with the report. The DOE’s conclusion was first reported in the Wall Street Journal, which said the classified report was based on new intelligence and noted in an update to a 2021 document. The DOE oversees a national network of labs in America.

The FBI has now endorsed the “lab leak” theory. On Tuesday, Director Christopher Wray said that the bureau believes COVID-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab. “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident,” he told Fox News.

Other US government agencies have differing conclusions. But the Republicans, a majority of whom have backed the theory, have started a new committee to probe the issue.

In an October 2022 report, GOP members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions said, “The pandemic was likely the result of a “research-related incident”.

Also read: Is China secretly developing a virus ‘deadlier’ than COVID-19 in a Pakistan laboratory?

What is the White House saying?

The White House has said that there is no consensus across the US government on the origins of the virus.

Speaking to media persons at a daily White House news conference on Tuesday, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that the intelligence community and the government are still looking at the COVID-19 origin theory.

“There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” he said.

He added that President Joe Biden made trying to find COVID origin a priority right when he came into office. And he’s got a whole-of-government effort designed to do that.

What is the WHO saying?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) looked into the matter in early 2021. A team of scientists appointed by the health agency flew to Wuhan to investigate the source of the pandemic. They visited the lab and spent 12 days in the city only to conclude that the theory was “extremely unlikely”.

But WHO hasn’t ruled it out completely. After reading the report from international experts’ mission to Wuhan, WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for a new investigation, saying, “All hypotheses remain open and require further study.”

What do scientists believe?

Even the scientific commute is divided.

A prominent group of scientists said that the WHO report did not take the lab-leak theory seriously enough. “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the scientists wrote in Science Magazine in May 2021, reports the BBC.

After the energy department’s recent report, Dr Anthony Fauci, the former White House chief medical advisor, told The Boston Globe, “We must all keep an open mind to all possibilities… we may never know” the source of the outbreak. “I don’t see any data for a lab leak. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.”

Tarik Jašarević, a WHO spokesperson, said that the agency had not received any information on the recent assessment. “WHO and Sago [the Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens] will keep examining all available scientific evidence that would help us advance the knowledge on the origin of Sars-CoV-2 and we call on China and the scientific community to undertake necessary studies in that direction. Until we have more evidence all hypotheses are still on the table,” he said.

But others have said the lab theory does not stand.

“The pandemic began via at least two zoonotic spillovers from animals sold at the Huanan market” in Wuhan, China, Dr Angela Rasmussen, a top virologist and co-author of several studies on COVID-19’s origins, said in a statement on Twitter. “Not a lab, not a cave, not a dentist’s office. This is not our opinion. This is original, evidence-based research that withstood a tough peer review.”

She told Guardian that it was incorrect to say that this issue was “scientifically undecidced”.

Dong-Yan Jin, a virology professor at Hong Kong University, dubbed the story of the lab leak as fiction. “To me and other scientists who have common sense and who know well about the facts, the possibility of lab leak is extremely low,” he told Guardian.

What about China?

China, of course, has time and again denied allegations that the virus leaked from the lab or that it was engineered.

After the FBI’s statement, Beijing urged the US to “respect science and facts”. “By rehashing the lab-leak theory, the US will not succeed in discrediting China, and instead, it will only hurt its own credibility,” said China foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

She further argued that the involvement of the FBI was evidence enough of “politicisation of origin tracing”. “We urge the US to respect science and facts … stop turning origin tracing into something about politics and intelligence, and stop disrupting social solidarity and origins cooperation,” she said.

China has some theories of its own. One that the virus entered Wuhan in shipments of frozen meat from some other parts of the country or Southeast Asia. Another points fingers at the US and claims that the virus was leaked from Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland – a centre for US biological weapons programme.

Also read: ‘Lab leak was not an accident’: Chinese virologist who first proved Covid was China’s cover-up operation

What is the truth?

We are still finding out. But several scientists believe that the virus spread naturally from animals. There was no lab leak. It emerged in bats and then jumped to humans through another animal or “intermediary host”, according to a report in the BBC.

However, the world needs to get to the bottom of this to prevent future pandemics. Confirmation of a lab leak would have China cornered. It will further strain ties between Washington and Beijing but even those who are allies of the country will become more cautious.

If the zoonotic theory is true, it could affect farming and the exploitation of wildlife, the BBC reports. And if there is truth to the “frozen food” theory, it could hit industries and imports.

With inputs from agencies

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