The NPR Politics Podcast - Why Scientists, Lawmakers & Diplomats Care Where COVID Began

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

The Department of Energy has a new report which concludes with "low confidence" that the COVID-19 virus could have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal report. Scientists say the evidence continues to strongly support a wildlife origin. The attempt to figure out the truth continues to have big implications across public health and both domestic and international politics. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hey y'all, this is Ashley in Victoria, Texas, and I'm getting ready to walk into a job interview. I am just a bundle of nerves right now, so I'm trying to distract myself by recording this timestamp. This podcast was recorded at 1.12 p.m. on Tuesday, February 28th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

Hopefully, I'll have a different job. All right, here's the show. Good luck. Oh, I hope it went well. I know those job nerves can really get to you. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And we're joined by NPR correspondents Greg Myrie, who covers intelligence, and Michaeline Duclef from our science desk. Welcome to you both. Thanks, Sue. Thank you. It's a bigger than usual cast for today's episode because it's a complicated topic. We're going to talk about the origins of the coronavirus that sparked the worldwide pandemic

about three years ago. Where the virus came from has been the topic of much political and scientific debate. And the Wall Street Journal added to that debate this week with an exclusive report that the U.S. Department of Energy concluded in a classified intelligence report that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak in China. Now, we should note NPR has not independently corroborated the Wall Street Journal's reporting, but it's a credible report and the DOE has not disputed it. So let's talk about it. Greg, what does this classified report allegedly say about where the virus started? Well, it was written by the Energy Department, and apparently it's been provided to the White

House and some members of Congress. Now, the Wall Street Journal said it spoke to people who have read the report, but the intelligence itself is classified. So they didn't share the evidence, whatever it may be, that persuaded the Energy Department to change its assessment and now say that they think it's most likely a lab leak, although we want to stress with low confidence. So previously, the Energy Department wasn't taking a position on the two main possibilities, one being the natural transmission of the virus from an animal to a human, possibly at the seafood market in Wuhan, China, versus a lab leak, again, possibly in Wuhan at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studies coronaviruses. Can we just focus on this term low confidence? Because I think this is important to really underscore that this is not the final word here.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of different government agencies, eight of them looking into this. None of them have reached a conclusion with high confidence. So basically, when an assessment is made in the intelligence community, they will make it with high confidence, which means we're pretty sure, moderate confidence, yes, but maybe there's a little doubt, or low confidence, where we think that there's evidence pointing in this direction, but we haven't nailed it down. So I want to stress that this assessment and most of the others are all low confidence assessments.

Why is the Department of Energy one of the agencies looking at this? Well, it's part of the intelligence community. You may not think that, but it includes 18 different agencies. Department of Energy has a lot of scientists. We would expect them to work on nuclear issues, which they do, but they also work on bio issues. Michaelene, how does this align or maybe conflict with the research the scientific community has done trying to figure out where exactly the virus came from? Yeah, you know, I would say that it conflicts and conflicts quite strongly. Virologists, you know, who actually spend their whole career studying the origin of pandemics even before COVID, you know, say there is a huge amount of evidence supporting a natural origin. And specifically, the data points to the pandemic starting at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan with the virus jumping from a caged wild animal into people.

And I want to give you just a little bit of taste of that evidence because I think that's what's been missing in this discussion. So last year, there were two papers published in the journal Science which presented this evidence. And specifically, the paper showed photographic evidence that one stall of the market had caged wild animals known to be highly susceptible to COVID and that could actually spew COVID into the air when they're infected. And inside this particular stall, scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on several surfaces, including a cage, a drain, and on the surface of butchering equipment, like a deferring device. The papers

also show that many people, probably thousands of people, were infected at that market in December 2019, and basically that the pandemic literally radiated out from there. Now, the vast majority of scientists studying this area said there is little doubt the pandemic began at this market. How the virus got to the market, that they don't know. They don't know who brought it to the market, what brought it to the market. But animals were infected at that market. Now, Greg, you mentioned that the DOE is certainly not the only agency looking at this. Other intelligence agencies have also reached similar conclusions that it could have come from this market. Can you

just give us some perspective of who's weighed in, who hasn't weighed in, and sort of what the broader intelligence community assessment is about this? Right. Shortly after President Biden's administration began, he asked for sort of a comprehensive look. Can we find out what the origin of the COVID virus is? So eight different intelligence agencies are taking part in this. And the bottom line is they don't know. They don't have a consensus. They haven't reached a definitive conclusion. Now, of these eight, four lean towards a natural transmission, but with low confidence. Two haven't made a judgment one way or the other, and then CIA being one of those two. And now we have two of the eight that lean toward a lab leak. The FBI has concluded previously with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak,

and now the Energy Department with low confidence. Now, all this was put together in an intelligence community report that was put out in October of 2021. And this energy department assessment that we're talking about right now is the most significant update. In fact, it hadn't heard a lot from the intelligence community in the past year plus. But again, it shows there's no strong consensus. There's some divisions, and it may get harder and harder to piece this together the further and further we get away from the outbreak at the end of 2019. Michael, and as part of the problem, you know, more data creates better science. I think that's a fair statement. And the Chinese government hasn't exactly been very forthcoming with allowing as much access as virologists or U.S. government officials would like to answer these questions.

So I guess maybe from a scientific standpoint, how difficult it is to finally get this answer if you don't have the data that you would like to have to find the answer to it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, pinpointing the origin of a pandemic or an outbreak is already is a very hard problem to solve. You know, it took decades for them to figure out the origin of HIV, for instance. You know, but this in this instance, it's been a lot harder because information was removed, you know, like those caged animals at the seafood market were taken out before officials came. The Chinese government has heavily influenced what information has come out of China. So for instance, when scientists went to interview very early COVID cases, those interviews were, you know, monitored and the information that came from them was controlled, as well as when scientists interviewed people working at the Virology Institute in Wuhan.

So yes, absolutely, the scientists have had less than optimal access to information. And there's a lot of information out there that, you know, may never become available. We don't know. But here's the thing. This is the way science works. You know, you take the data that you have and you make a hypothesis that fits that data. And right now, the data that is available, the good data, the higher confidence data, points to those animals being infected in that market and passing that on to people. But, Tam, politically speaking, and let's make clear that the science and the politics here can often be in conflict.

There is some vindication here for Republicans. I'm thinking of people like Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican from Arkansas, who very, very early on raised questions about a possible lab leak. And a lot of these voices were completely dismissed. They were accused of being conspiracy theorists. Some were accused of raising racist or xenophobic sentiments. And now there are at least two credible government agencies, the FBI and the Department of Energy, who are saying, look, like we don't have a high level of confidence, but this is not some insane crazy eyed theory here. Right. So as with almost absolutely everything related to the pandemic, the origins of the pandemic got very politicized very quickly. And you had people in the scientific community dismissing these ideas out of hand as misinformation

or conspiracy theories. And you had largely people on the right sort of going into their ideological bunker and saying, look, these people are not being scientifically sound by dismissing this out of hand. So there's been all of this back and forth. There's been, you know, a reluctance in some areas to accept the possibility that the lab leak was even plausible because of the people who were pushing the idea that there could be a lab leak. And what I will say, though, is, as Greg said, early in the Biden administration, and without much fanfare, at least initially, President Biden ordered the intelligence community to actually look at the origins. And that is what gets us here. I just want to point out that I think early on, so we're talking

2020, early 2020, there was definitely some dismissiveness in the scientific community about a lab leak, no doubt. But I have to say that a large group of scientists came forward pretty early and said, look, this is a credible hypothesis. This needs to be investigated. And we're open to it and are still open to it. You know, one of the scientists I talked to said, look, if evidence comes along tomorrow,

heavily, you know, favor in pointing into a lab, you know, we will change our hypothesis. We are open to it. It's just right now, there is no data pointing to the lab. So I just want you to be clear that the scientific community has been open to this and is open to this. Okay. We need to take a quick break, but we're going to talk more about this when we get back. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com.

T's and C's apply. And we're back. And the question I come back to every time this debate is raised, and I'm glad that y'all are here because I think you come at it from different perspectives in your respective beats, is why does it even matter where the virus came from? And Michaelene, I would start with you. And scientifically, why does it matter? Well, I think it's important because it shows us where we really need to look for the next dangerous virus. I mean, there will be another pandemic or major outbreak. And look, officials and scientists already knew that these markets where, you know,

live wild animals are caged, these markets are extremely dangerous for creating and spreading new viruses. These animals carry viruses that most humans have never encountered, so there's no immunity. And when you mix animals together, you run the risk of viruses mixing together and creating something super dangerous like SARS-CoV-2. With SARS-CoV-1, which broke out in 2003, that came from a caged wild animal in a market. So the Chinese government already knew that these markets are dangerous for creating pandemics. And that's why having the pandemic begin at the seafood market in Wuhan is actually incredibly embarrassing to the Chinese government, because it indicates they

didn't fix the problems that caused the first SARS pandemic. Now, if data do come out that points to a lab, which is entirely possible, then that would have implications for lab security and the future of working with any live human virus. So I would just note that the U.S.-Chinese relationship is extremely fraught these days. And perhaps one of the few areas where theoretically the U.S. and China could cooperate would be on something like science, on how to prevent a pandemic, that this would be in the interest of not only the U.S. and China, but the rest of the world. But instead, it's become yet another point of friction. We just got past the Chinese surveillance balloon, which was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

The U.S. is currently taking it apart and trying to figure out exactly what the Chinese were doing. We've just had, in the past couple of days, CIA Director William Burns saying that China is considering sending weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine and the U.S. publicly warning China not to do that. President Biden has sought to limit Chinese access to computer chips, something that China considers very, very important. So you have all these issues going on and here was perhaps a potential for some cooperation, but it's just become another point of friction. relationship or about malign behavior from China is what they're hoping to point to in this committee hearing, which is one of the rare bipartisan efforts in the House this session. And so that fraught relationship is front of mind from the spy balloon to the origins of COVID. And

I do think for the administration, for people on the left, if the lab leak theory becomes not a conspiracy theory, then that does create a challenge for them because they were so dismissive initially. And I think for Republicans, it's a chance for them to sort of spike the football and say, oh, see, we were right all along and they doubted us. And what other things are people on the left so sure about that that they're actually wrong about? Do you think politically, Tam, trying to figure out the question of the origin because it could dramatically affect the U.S.-China relationship? an accident, it's much harder for maybe, and I think the Republicans initially were taking a much stronger position against China, to be as aggressive towards them if it was an accident versus something that might have been more nefarious. Here's the thing. The White House doesn't even want to speculate about the idea that it would be more nefarious because that,

I mean, the relationship is already so fraught and yet also so interconnected that it just creates a massive political problem. It'll be fascinating to see, too, because this is also a priority of the new Republican majority in the House. Jim Jordan, who's the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants to specifically do a series of hearings and try to at least get a public airing of this debate. So it's certainly not the last we're going to hear about it. Certainly not this year and certainly not before the next presidential election. Indeed. All right. That is it for us today. Greg Myrie and Michaeline Duclaff, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate your expertise and your insight. My pleasure. You're welcome.

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