Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

If Covid Did Escape From a Wuhan Lab, Brace Yourself

The world’s anger will be terrible to behold.

June 4, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

Did it all start right here?
Photographer: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Ever since President Joe Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate reports that the Covid-19 virus might have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, commentators have argued over what difference it makes if the theory turns out to be right. Here’s why the answer matters: The discovery that the virus had a human origin would give the coronavirus saga what it’s lacked: a villain.

And that’s a problem.