Can Science Help Resolve the Controversy on the Origins of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

Abstract

The origins of the calamitous SARS-CoV-2 pandemic are now the subject of vigorous discussion and debate between two competing hypotheses for how it entered the human population: (i) direct infection from a feral source, likely a bat and possibly with an intermediate mammalian host, and (ii) a lab accident whereby bat isolates infected a researcher, who then passed it to others. Here, we ask whether the tools of science can help resolve the origins question and conclude that while such studies can provide important information, these are unlikely to provide a definitive answer. Currently available data combined with historical precedent from other outbreaks and viewed through the prism of Occam's razor favor the feral source hypothesis, but science can provide only probabilities, not certainty.

Keywords: COVID; SARS; SARS-CoV-2.

FIG 1

Four possible pathways for SARS-CoV-2 to enter the human population from a feral bat source. Precedents for each of the four pathways are provided in Table 1. Pathway C envisions infection of laboratory personnel involved in field work with viruses or caring for captive bats being used in research.