Thread by @opinion

What if we never learn whether the virus that causes Covid-19 escaped from a lab or jumped to humans from animals?

The public is still entitled to a closer look at what’s going on in virology labs trib.al/dHZ7Htj

Some scientists worry that laboratory scientists are getting too little oversight on projects that could potentially start pandemics.

Others worry about the global proliferation of labs that work with dangerous viruses and other pathogens trib.al/kwok8bt

SARS-CoV-2’s closest relative appears to be in horseshoe bats — yet there are no horseshoe bat colonies close to Wuhan, China, where the pandemic was first identified.

However, Wuhan hosts a lab holding the world’s largest collection of bat coronaviruses trib.al/kwok8bt

There is no convincing evidence Covid-19 has been genetically manipulated.

But it’s well known that scientists have manipulated other viruses to make them more dangerous trib.al/kwok8bt

In 2003, scientists voiced concerns over the realization that emerging genetic technology might allow people to alter viruses to make them deadlier or more transmissible.

Such experiments started happening trib.al/kwok8bt

More recently, scientists have been creating genetically-altered coronaviruses.

That research has been done as a collaboration between U.S. labs and the Wuhan Institute of Virology trib.al/kwok8bt

More experiments created new viruses increasingly adept at infecting human cells.

“And so this is, of course, a cookbook for constructing a virus of extremely high pandemic potential,” says biologist @R_H_Ebright trib.al/kwok8bt

Ebright suggests that the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy or another independent entity should be responsible for oversight, rather than agencies that do research or fund it trib.al/kwok8bt

Purdue University virologist David Sanders thinks the danger lies less in genetic manipulation experiments and more in the worldwide proliferation of labs that deal in deadly pathogens, natural or engineered trib.al/kwok8bt

After all, some genetic manipulation of viruses can provide valuable insights.

Gene therapy, for example, uses altered viruses to deliver life-saving genetic material into human cells trib.al/kwok8bt

How did SARS-CoV-2 get into humans? We still don’t know.

And it’s perfectly reasonable to keep asking questions trib.al/kwok8bt