Stop playing games with COVID-19's origins

Everyone knows COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China, but not how it happened. After three years, 760 million confirmed cases, and nearly 7 million deaths, the world still puzzles over whether the pandemic sprang from a laboratory or from infected animals.

Some scientific experts and national intelligence officials believe a mishap occurred at the maximum security biology research institute in Wuhan. Others are convinced the virus was a natural transmission to humans from live animals sold in the city’s huge marketplace.

The secretive Beijing government has shamefully resisted an international search for answers that could save lives in the future. Apparently, President Xi Jinping’s administration prefers mystery, which only adds to the concern and the conspiracy theories. That much became clear with last week's sudden splurge of information pointing to potentially infected raccoon dogs at the Wuhan market as a possible culprit. These mammals are sold, often illegally, for meat and fur.

An international team of scientists says genetic data from swabs taken at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market in 2020 showed raccoon dogs and the virus present at the same time. On March 12, Chinese scientists posted this gene-sequencing information on the world’s biggest public virus database, according to the World Health Organization. Then came a weird curveball. After a team of outside scientists offered their Chinese counterparts an opportunity to collaborate, the data reportedly was removed from the website.

WHO director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stood on solid ground when he said Friday: “This data could have and should have been shared three years ago.” When proof remains elusive, it's easy to get whipsawed.

Last month, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Energy, like the FBI, leans toward a lab leak, despite "low confidence" in this finding. Other agencies remain dubious, but the State Department hasn't backtracked on what it declared in early 2021: “Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure.”

The discovery and enforcement of better practices in both labs and markets is a good idea, wherever the virus sprang from. 

China's hostile secrecy contaminates open discussion in the U.S. Since 2020, Democrats, Republicans and bureaucrats have postured and quibbled over which faction’s guesses should be embraced and who has motive to mislead whom. Getting the answers should not be a partisan competition. The lab theory if confirmed wouldn’t redeem the GOP’s habit of conspiratorial guesswork any more than implicating bats or dogs helps Democrats. With solidarity, WHO officials and the Biden administration must prod and pressure Xi and his reticent regime more effectively. Global scientific collaboration is key to battling pandemics.

Fearless focus on objective fact is crucial. It’s long past time for authorities to yield straight answers to straight questions. There is no other way.