Thread by @celinegounder

1/ Agree with @ScottGottliebMD: "I'm not sure we're ever going to have a definitive grasp on the answer to that question" -- did the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic originate from zoonotic spillovers or from a lab accident?
overcast.fm/+MLB_ELKGQ/25:…

2/ "...unless we find the intermediate host where the virus originated from, the animal host..." -@ScottGottliebMD

It took decades for us to figure out that HIV is a hybrid of SIVs naturally infecting the red-capped mangabey and the greater spot-nosed monkey.

3/ "or unless we have something that definitively demonstrates that this came out of a lab — a whistleblower, access to information that hadn't been available previously..." -@ScottGottliebMD

I don't think we'll ever get full access to Wuhan Institute of Virology records/staff.

4/ "...this matters because a lot of the discussion around how to prevent the next pandemic is focused on zoonotic sources and trying to improve handling of foods and wet markets and trying to look at all the risks of human encroaching on natural habitats..." -@ScottGottliebMD

5/ We also need to look at:
"...how do we get better security and better practices around BSL3 & BSL4 labs. BSL4 labs are springing up all over the world. We don't really have good international governance of those labs... their practices...research ..." -@ScottGottliebMD

6/ "If you think there's a possibility this came out of a lab, I think part of the policy response ought to be getting better governance around high-risk research and high-risk laboratories, and that discussion's not happening." -@ScottGottliebMD

7/ 💯 agree:

"As far as the lab leak theory, there's two narratives here, and one is interfering with the other." -@ScottGottliebMD

8/ 💯 agree:

"One narrative is that there's a direct connection between NIH and US researchers and this strain, which was engineered deliberately by Chinese researchers. I think that narrative is untrue." -@ScottGottliebMD

9/ "That political narrative is conflicting with a more plausible narrative which is that this is a strain that was found in nature that was brought to the lab for further evaluation..." -@ScottGottliebMD

10/ "...and in the course of evaluating it, and maybe doing research on how to develop countermeasures against it that were well-intentioned, it became more humanized, more human-adapted..." -@ScottGottliebMD

11/ "...and accidentally was walked out of the lab, probably by people infecting themselves. I think that there's some plausibility around the second scenario." -@ScottGottliebMD

12/ "And unfortunately, the political narrative that's being pushed around the first scenario, is, I think, obscuring the possibility of the second scenario..." -@ScottGottliebMD