Childish squabbles over the origins of Covid-19 are distracting the public and researchers from more urgent work, a scientist said, as a peer called for answers to lingering questions about the virus research carried out at a laboratory at the centre of the controversy.
“For us to spend so much time and energy on this low probability event, we look like a bunch of school kids fighting in the playground. We’re not trying to solve anything … It’s a complete waste of time,” Wu said at the seminar on Wednesday. “It’s inconceivable either through lab synthesis or through taking a virus from nature, from any animal, and releasing it into the human population and expecting it to burn through the population. I consider it extremely unlikely.
Gain of function refers to research which modifies a pathogen to make it more transmissible or take on new qualities. An official with China’s National Health Commission called the lab hypothesis – centred on the Wuhan Institute of Virology – a rumour, while the foreign ministry has in recent months promoted the theory that a lab at the Fort Detrick US military base in Maryland was the more likely source.
This severely disrupted the meat trade as prices surged, and movement of live pigs was restricted to try to control the swine epidemic.