U.S. President Joe Biden has tasked his intelligence agencies to investigate whether the novel coronavirus escaped from a Chinese laboratory. This may or may not turn up something new. But the world can be sure of one thing right now: Errors with potentially devastating consequences are within the realm of possibility. That should be enough to make reviewing and improving biosafety standards worldwide a top priority.
The evidence that an error or leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology released Covid-19 into the world remains circumstantial. But investigators haven’t yet found the pathway by which the virus may have crossed over from animals. Plainly, both possibilities need to be investigated thoroughly — and China should help in this effort more eagerly than it has so far.
