Why the COVID-19 origin report came up inconclusive

The U.S. intelligence community was unable to reach a conclusion about the origins of COVID-19 after a 90-day review of available data and interviews with top health experts and officials.

If anyone was surprised about the inconclusive results, it was not those same health experts and officials. Those with experience hunting viruses in their natural habitats know just how difficult it is to track their origins.

Many had said from the beginning that there is insufficient evidence to pinpoint the moment in which the coronavirus infected its first human victim — and, based on experience with previous novel pathogens, the evidence is almost certain never to be found.

“It was obvious to many of us that based on the information they had, it was going to be incomplete,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention at the University of Minnesota. “The level of information you need from the time that a spillover might have occurred or the time a leak might have occurred is in relatively short supply.”

The review by American intelligence agencies will be unsatisfying for everyone, whether they are inclined to believe the virus came from an animal known as a reservoir host and infected the first humans in a natural setting — something most health experts believe is the most likely explanation — or that the global pandemic is the result of a lab leak at a facility in Wuhan, China.