Why it's so tricky to trace the origin of COVID-19
A 90-day investigation into the source of SARS-CoV-2 has shown consensus that the virus was not engineered. But many other elements remain a mystery.
After 20 months, 219 million cases, and more than four million deaths, we’ve learned a lot about the COVID-19 pandemic. But the most polarizing question and central mystery remains: We still don’t know where the virus that started it all actually came from. Most experts were not surprised in late August when a 90-day investigation by the U.S. intelligence community came up empty-handed on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. A brief, one-page unclassified summary released on August 27 revealed the only point on which the intelligence community agreed: that the virus was “not developed as a biological weapon.”
Understanding where, when, and how this pandemic started is important information for public health officials seeking to control its spread and
