Demands for a lab leak investigation are a dangerous distraction

As Americans move toward a vaccinated future, there are two crucial pandemic tasks to accomplish, and both would fare better with robust US-China cooperation. The first is to vaccinate the world. The second is to prevent the next pandemic. Neither is being furthered by the intense focus on lab leak allegations.

As the friendly and eminent virologists on This Week in Virology remind us episode after episode, the prevailing hypothesis is Covid-19 arose as a spillover from animals, similar to the original origins of diseases that have caused serious outbreaks, epidemics, or pandemics in the past. If we were setting up a standard scientific inquiry, that would be the obvious hypothesis to test first. As columnist Michael Hiltzik documented thoroughly in the Los Angeles Times, there is no actual evidence for the lab leak allegation, which makes it an unlikely primary hypothesis. In other words, the lab leak is a distraction. That would be relatively harmless if the only effect was to cause a large number of pundits to pontificate on two areas of study many know nothing about: virology and the nature of the Chinese state. But in fact, it is contributing to the failure to make rapid and successful progress on critical issues promoting global human health.

Americans have large, unfinished tasks ahead that could benefit from true US-China cooperation, something that’s perfectly possible even as geopolitical tensions increase. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union cooperated to eradicate smallpox. That was part of a longer period of vaccine cooperation that led to the development of the Sabin polio vaccine (to replace the original Salk polio vaccine) in the United States and its testing in the Soviet Union. Even while the two countries were involved in a space and a nuclear arms race, they took a cooperative approach to disease prevention because both countries recognized that disease preparation is a global public good. We are all protected only when everyone is protected.

The United States and China need to take the same message. In contrast to the continuing antagonism and competitiveness between the two governments on health, the two countries have struck a much more cooperative stance on climate change. Both presidents appointed experienced negotiators who had worked with each other before, and they immediately began meeting to address both bilateral issues and how to support the international climate process together.

Working collaboratively internationally requires diplomacy. Each WHO member is sovereign. That’s why the WHO negotiates member country entry for all projects, whether they involve specimen collection or disease control. That is also why the US government works under bilateral agreements and coordinates closely with the WHO. The United States can’t demand the Chinese work with the WHO on these questions, but there are reasons why China would want to if the United States approached Beijing in a diplomatic manner.

The Chinese government wants a robust economy with an active population and therefore has strong reasons, as the United States should too, to protect human health. Pandemics are harmful to everyone. The Chinese scientific community also wants to conduct cutting-edge work, and much of its capacity is now top notch. But no country (even the United States) holds a monopoly on expertise; and therefore, scientists value working collaboratively. There are strong reasons to believe, as in the period after SARS when international cooperation increased rapidly in China, the United States could build ties, especially if it works collaboratively, to support a WHO effort the way it did for influenza.

Critics will claim those arguing for the likelihood of a natural origin to COVID-19 are in denial. But they confuse two points: one scientific and one political. Arguing that natural origins appear more likely than a lab leak but that nothing can be ruled out is not denial. It is simply giving a best estimate of likely outcomes. Equally, arguing that approaching the Chinese in an accusatory manner is not likely to yield openness and bring new information is not denial either. It is a description of the political situation the United States finds itself in.

A sincere quest for the pandemic’s origins also needs patience. It took 14 years to identify the full path of SARS, and the beginnings of many other diseases are still mysteries, including Ebola.

Right now, that information won’t help control the virus—that’s the vaccines’ job. But it can help prevent a future pandemic. The next pandemic won’t necessarily come out of China, but given the size of the Chinese population and the number of people in close proximity to animals there, it has to be a key part of any prevention strategy.

* Deborah Seligsohn is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, a Wilson Center China fellow, an associate at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania