The pandemic’s origins, the lab leak theory, and the blame game have been in the headlines again. Despite another war of words, we aren’t any closer to a definitive answer as to where the novel coronavirus came from. Mun-Keat Looi asks why “Simply preposterous,” said Anthony Fauci, responding in a US congressional hearing to one more in a long line of allegations that he had caused the covid-19 pandemic by funding research that may have created the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “Mr Fauci,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far right Republican representative from Georgia, at the same hearing, “we should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity . . . You belong in prison.” She emphasised her refusal to address Fauci, the former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as “Dr” because, in her opinion, he did not deserve the title. This was the latest in a long line of questioning at the Republican controlled Congress investigating the US government’s response to covid-19 and where SARS-CoV-2 came from.1 The session in June, the 27th in a 15 month period, restoked flames of contention over the virus’s origins. For the past four years experts and politicians have been, at times very publicly, in a war of words over the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (box 1). The arguments have left the public—eager to forget the limits put on personal freedoms at the outset of the pandemic but still searching for a scapegoat—confused. Years after lockdowns, masking, social distancing, and vaccination became polarising issues for Republicans and Democrats, the response to the pandemic remains a political issue in the US—not least in a presidential election year. Box 1 ### Two theories of covid-19’s origins #### Natural evolution In this theory SARS-CoV-2 evolved naturally as a spillover from animals, as happened with SARS-CoV-1 in the … RETURN TO TEXT

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我们会知道 covid-19 从哪里来吗？


大流行的起源、实验室泄漏理论和相互指责游戏再次成为头条新闻。尽管又发生了一场口水战，但对于新型冠状病毒的来源，我们还没有更接近明确的答案。安东尼·福奇 (Anthony Fauci) 在美国国会听证会上回应了一系列指控，称他通过资助可能产生 SARS-CoV 的研究而导致了 covid-19 大流行，他在美国国会听证会上回应了这一指控，他质问为什么“简直荒谬”。 -2病毒。 “福奇先生，”佐治亚州极右翼共和党代表马乔里·泰勒·格林在同一次听证会上说，“我们应该写一份刑事转介书，因为你应该因反人类罪而受到起诉……” 。 。你属于监狱。”她强调，她拒绝称呼美国国家过敏和传染病研究所前所长福奇为“博士”，因为在她看来，他不配得到这个头衔。这是共和党控制的国会一系列质询中的最新一次，该国会调查美国政府对 covid-19 的反应以及 SARS-CoV-2 的来源。 1 6 月的会议是 15 个月内的第 27 次会议，再次引发了争论。关于病毒起源的争论。过去四年来，专家和政治家有时非常公开地就 SARS-CoV-2 的起源展开口水战（框 1）。这些论点让公众感到困惑——他们渴望忘记疫情爆发之初对个人自由的限制，但仍在寻找替罪羊。在封锁、戴口罩、社交距离和疫苗接种成为共和党和民主党两极分化的问题多年后，对这一流行病的反应仍然是美国的一个政治问题——尤其是在总统选举年。框 1 ### covid-19 起源的两种理论 #### 自然进化 在这一理论中，SARS-CoV-2 作为动物的溢出物自然进化，就像 SARS-CoV-1 中发生的那样……返回文本