COVID-19 origin more likely to be research-related, suggests US Senate Committee report

As scientists are still scrambling to find the source of the viral infections, a new analysis by a US Senate on COVID-19 origins suggests that the "pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident".

But the report offers little new evidence to suggest this. It said that "lack of transparency" and restrictions on information by officials in the People's Republic of China (PRC) "prevents reaching a more definitive conclusion".

"More information is needed to arrive at a more precise, if not a definitive, understanding of the origins of SARS-CoV-2," it said.

In December 2019, China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, was eventually identified. Later, in January 2020, Thailand confirmed a COVID-19 case, the first case recorded case outside of China.

Earlier research had suggested transmission of the virus from animals to human beings. Studies also hinted at China's Wuhan market being the pandemic's epicentre.

Some other studies said, "SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for causing COVID-19 disease) was either created in a lab or was accidentally or intentionally released by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology".

Moreover, China had also postulated the theory that the virus arrived in the country on the surface of imported frozen seafood.

In its interim report, the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions raised several questions over the "natural zoonotic spillover hypothesis".

It said that SARS-CoV-2 originating from a bat virus is a "plausible explanation". However, "it remains unknown how SARS-CoV-2 travelled more than 1,000 miles from Southern China or Southeast Asia before emerging in Wuhan".

"Almost three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began there is still no evidence of an animal infected with SARS-CoV-2, or a closely related virus, before the first publicly reported human COVID-19 cases in Wuhan in December 2019," it said.

It also places forth some facts and gaps in information. Among them, some of the arguments include:

1. If one exists, the intermediate host species for SARS-CoV-2 is not yet identified.

2. There is no published genetic evidence that shows SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in animals before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. The genomes of early COVID-19 cases did not show genetic evidence, in the form of adaptive mutations, that SARS-CoV-2 recently circulated in another animal species other than humans.

4. The genetic similarity between the environmental samples and human viral samples supports the likelihood that the virus found at the Huanan Seafood Market was shed by infected humans rather than by infected animals.

5. Wuhan was the only location where SARS-CoV-2 spilled over into humans, based on the available evidence. "After the unidentified source transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans, it stopped transmitting SARS-CoV-2. This is at odds with the precedent of the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic where infected palm civets continued to transmit the virus to humans and raccoon dogs."

Supporting the studies that suggested COVID-19 origin at a lab, the report mentioned the patents that indicated: "The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) struggled to maintain key biosafety capabilities at its high-containment BSL3 and BSL4 laboratories."

It also quoted the director of the WIV BSL4 laboratory as saying in 2019 that: "Currently, most laboratories lack specialized biosafety managers and engineers. Some of the skilled staff in such facilities is composed of part-time researchers. This makes it difficult to identify and mitigate potential safety hazards in facility and equipment operation early enough.

It also noted that a research-related incident is consistent with the "early epidemiology showing rapid spread of the virus in Wuhan". It also mentioned "the likely index case" that an infected researcher might be the primary source of the virus in Wuhan.

"A research-related incident also explains the failure to find an intermediate host and any animal infections pre-dating human COVID-19 cases," the report said.