The News of the Day: A Report on the Origins of COVID-19 Sparks Debate

The U.S. Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic published a report that quickly went viral.

According to the report, compiled by officials, the coronavirus most likely escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Moreover, it was allegedly artificially created, partially funded with U.S. money. The first scientific article claiming otherwise, The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2, published in Nature Medicine, is accused of being politically motivated. The WHO is also portrayed as being "sold out" to China. Social distancing, mask mandates, and lockdowns are criticized as harmful policies.

On the bright side, the report does acknowledge the effectiveness of vaccines. The Operation Warp Speed program, a collaboration between the government and private companies under the Trump administration to rapidly develop vaccines, is recognized as a success that saved millions of lives.

However, the report blames the Biden administration and Kamala Harris for undermining pandemic responses and accuses Obama of leaving the U.S. short on medical supplies. It also includes extensive personal critiques of political figures unfamiliar to me. Scientific rigor and neutrality, of course, are conspicuously absent.

Since my expertise lies outside the realm of U.S. taxpayer spending or factional political disputes, as a biologist, I will focus on the part of the report addressing the origin of the coronavirus.

Origin of the Coronavirus: Revisiting Old Arguments

The discussion on the virus's origins presents no new arguments; everything cited is from four years ago. If anyone finds this report eye-opening, I’d challenge them to name a single fresh and convincing argument it makes. If its credibility hinges solely on the fact that old, previously debunked arguments now carry an official government stamp, let me remind you that science is based on evidence, not political opinions.

Of the 57 pages devoted to the coronavirus’s origins, 53 are focused on criticizing the 2020 paper The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2, which supported a natural origin. Instead of addressing scientific arguments, the report analyzes personal correspondence between the paper's authors. For instance, it highlights that one scientist initially wrote one thing in a private email but later changed their position in the published paper. The scientist has explained that their view evolved based on the new evidence included in the study. This is how science works—you seek to disprove your own hypotheses and adapt to the facts you uncover.

Instead, the report dwells on irrelevant insinuations like, "This scientist may have been influenced by Anthony Fauci!"—filling fifty pages with similar conjectures.

The Science Has Advanced; The Report Hasn't

The report ignores the numerous significant studies published since 2020. For example, the most recent and relevant research appeared in Cell in 2024 under the title Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study analyzed genetic material from specific stalls at the Wuhan market. It found the highest concentrations of the virus precisely where animals like raccoon dogs, known carriers of coronaviruses, were located. Does the report address this study? Of course not—it doesn’t even mention it.

Similarly, it overlooks pivotal earlier studies. A 2022 article in Science, The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2, showed that the pandemic's start was unlikely to stem from a single human infection. There were two variants of the virus, differing by two mutations, likely transmitted independently. This points to an interface where humans were consistently exposed to the virus source—like a market.

The likelihood of a lab-leak scenario requires imagining researchers repeatedly mishandling infected animals or cultures and succeeding at least twice—a far-fetched scenario. A companion study from 2022 in Science, The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, also pinpointed the market as the outbreak's epicenter. Does the report discuss these findings? No.

Misrepresenting Science: The "Furin Cleavage" Fallacy

The report repeats the debunked claim that SARS-CoV-2 was artificially designed using a "furin cleavage site" insertion in its spike protein, enhancing its infectivity. This sequence of amino acids is indeed absent in the virus’s closest known relatives. While researchers have created experimental viruses with similar sequences, the natural evolution of such insertions is well-documented in other viruses.

Crucially, the "furin cleavage site" in SARS-CoV-2 is different from anything used in prior laboratory experiments. It even deviates from what scientists would have expected such a sequence to look like pre-pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 itself also differs significantly from any known virus that could have feasibly served as its starting material. The most similar viruses, identified post-outbreak, are found in bats and already have the capacity to infect human cells without requiring engineered modifications.

Science, Not Politics, Should Decide

These are scientific questions that require scientific expertise. That’s why peer-reviewed journals like Nature, Science, PNAS, or Cell exist. Using a political report devoid of scientific evidence as the basis for an argument is, at best, misguided. Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis are welcome to publish robust evidence in reputable journals.

—Alexander Panchin, Ph.D. in Computational Biology, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Commission on Pseudoscience

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