TheBrief Opener

HEALTH noted that it could have been circulating,

A new push for undetected, well before its existence be-
came public knowledge—perhaps first
COVID-19’s roots infecting people outside the Wuhan area.
Scientists and elected ofcials from around
By Jamie Ducharme the world called for an independent inves-
If you are 18 or older
and your first dose was ...

A
tigation into the virus’s origins.
lmosT Two years inTo Chinese ofcials initially resisted those
the COVID-19 pandemic, as calls, but eventually let in a WHO-led Moderna
booster shots roll out and this mission in January 2021. The team’s find- Johnson
or Pfizer- & Johnson
summer’s Delta-related surge ings, published in a March report, were BioNTech
subsides in the U.S., it’s still not clear ex- inconclusive, sparking widespread con-
actly how, where or when SARS-CoV-2 sternation. Fourteen countries, includ-
began infecting people. Many experts be- ing the U.S., released a joint statement You had a second You had
lieve the virus jumped from animal hosts calling the report “significantly delayed dose of the same
vaccine about a
only a
single shot
to humans, but researchers continue to and lack[ing] access to complete, original month later
investigate the possibility that it escaped data and samples.” WHO ofcials and re-
from a laboratory. searchers later said China withheld data
The chances of figuring out which, if from the investigators. Are you any of
either, of those theories is correct grow In July, China rejected the WHO’s the following?
slimmer as time passes. But on Oct. 13, plans for a second effort, which would Q 65 or older
Has it been
the World Health Organization (WHO) re- have included further research into the Q Have an at least 2
underlying
vealed a new effort to capitalize on what possibility of a lab leak. Chinese ofcials medical
months
since your
time remains: the Scientific Advisory have repeatedly denied that any such leak condition? first shot?
Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens occurred. “We will not accept such an Q Work or live
(SAGO), an advisory group of interna- origins-tracing plan as it, in some aspects, in a high-risk NO YES
tional experts from specialties including disregards common sense and defies sci- setting (e.g.,
a long-term
epidemiology, virology, genomics, tropi- ence,” the vice minister of China’s Na- care facility)
cal medicine, public health and animal tional Health Commission told reporters.
health. The group is tasked with learn- SAGO’s work will not include another YES NO
ing what it can about SARS-CoV-2 while mission to China, says Maria Van Kerk-
streamlining the study of future emerg- hove, who leads the WHO’s Emerging
ing pathogens, in hopes of more quickly Diseases and Zoonoses unit. The group’s Are you
understanding their origins and trans- job is not to conduct field research, she immuno-
mission so they can be contained. But explains, but rather to review existing sci- compromised?
No
its first assignment will be bringing new ence and advise the WHO (and its mem- YES NO booster
life to the largely stalled investigation of ber states) about what to do next. yet
COVID-19’s origins—an investigation that “It’s not about blame. It’s not about
politicians, world leaders and countless pointing fingers. It’s about being better

members of the public have long put pres-
sure on the WHO to deliver.
It may be too late. Trying to reverse-
engineer a virus’s origins two years into
the pandemic it caused is like “going back
P R E V I O U S PA G E : I M A G E P O I N T F R / N I H / N I A I D/ B S I P/ U N I V E R S A L I M A G E S G R O U P/G E T T Y I M A G E S
prepared for next time,” Van Kerkhove Has it been at
least 6 months
continues. “Let’s say another disease since your
emerges tomorrow . . . This group can second dose?
come together and take whatever infor-
mation we have, whatever we know about YES NO

to the scene of a crime two years later and the cluster or the case, and advise, ‘These
the crime scene has been scrubbed,” says things need to happen right now.’”
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global Georgetown’s Gostin says a standing
health law at Georgetown University who committee, with the sole purpose of in- A third dose You are
of the same booster-
has served on numerous WHO advisory vestigating new pathogens, will make it shot is recom- eligible. You
committees. easier to find answers in the future. But he mended, as can receive:
That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying. doubts it will push the SARS-CoV-2 inves- soon as four QA half-dose
tigation forward. The WHO cannot com- weeks after the Moderna
second, though
When cases of what we now know to be pel countries to give unfettered access to Moderna and
shot, or
COVID-19 were first reported near Wuhan, its researchers, and it may be too late for QA Pfizer
Pfizer can be shot, or
China, in late 2019, the cluster seemed to effective cooperation when it comes to interchanged if
QA J&J shot
be linked to an animal market. But as time COVID-19. “The same structural barriers necessary
went on, some experts asked whether the are in place,” Gostin says. “As far as China
virus could have been lab-made. Others is concerned, the investigation is over.” □
14 Time November 8/November 15, 2021