Where Did Covid-19 Come From?

In case you forgot, we all started hearing about Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) in about January or Feb 2020. By March much of the US was shut down...Major League Baseball was stopped, Basketball March Madness didn't happen, airports were empty, borders locked down, cruise ships stranded in ports, hospitals and care centers inundated with patients on ventilators. A lot of focus was on Wuhan, China and the seafood and live animal markets where the first human cases were identified.

Here we are over three years later with over 643 billion cases and over 6 million worldwide deaths. There is still no clear answer of how this "new" virus came to be. Many agencies, scientific organizations, governments, and experts have convincing data that the virus originated with bats in caves and it was a transmission from bats to humans. This "animal vector" theory is quite common in many diseases and viruses. Others have convincing data that it spread to humans in the crowded Wuhan wet markets- raw foods, live animals, germs. And didn't China try to cover up the Wuhan connection? Remember that doctor that blew the whistle and then died of Covid?

There is also good evidence (not proof...evidence) that there was a laboratory mishap in a virus research facility located near Wuhan. Quality control problems were identified in late 2019. The Wall Street Journal reported findings from the FBI that the pandemic, "More likely than not was the result of a research-related incident". The statement was made with "moderate" confidence from the FBI.

Leave it to the American political system to change a neutral scientific inquiry into months of "hearings" as House Republicans pursue evidence of a possible "China virus cover-up". Just to add to conspiracy confusion, the NIH admitted in October 2021 that it funded research on bat corona viruses in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It doesn't pass the smell tests that China would develop and leak a poison to deliberately sicken their own population and damage the economy of the world.

The truth of the matter is that all of the investigating agencies agree that this was not a deliberate developed weapon. So we are left with two valid views:

• It started in the Wuhan wet market (as so many viruses in the past including the first SARS virus 20 years ago)

• It was an accidental bat corona virus lab leak (coincidence that the lab is located near the wet market) that was testing how coronavirus could be made more dangerous.

The reporting agencies all have access to the same information and are coming up with different theories. As physicians we are comfortable with ambiguity and not always having the answers to every question. I personally favor the lab leak hypothesis and think wet market should be shut down. Just an opinion.