The Origins of Covid-19 — Why It Matters (and Why It Doesn’t)

When Health emergencies arise, scientists seek to discover the cause — such as how a pathogen emerged and spread — because this knowledge can enhance our understanding of risks and strategies for prevention, preparedness, and mitigation. Yet well into the fourth year of the Covid-19 pandemic, intense political and scientific debates about its origins continue. The two major hypotheses are a natural zoonotic spillover, most likely occurring at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and a laboratory leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It is worth examining the efforts to discover the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the political obstacles, and what the evidence tells us. This evidence can help clarify the virus’s evolutionary path. But regardless of the origins of the virus, there are steps the global community can take to reduce future pandemic threats

Synopsis of Biological Safety and Security Arrangements

PASCC ReportThis Synopsis provides summaries of key international treaties, agreements, instruments, guidelines, multilateral engagement mechanisms, and information resources intended to guide each individual nation’s approach to biosafety in research, clinical, and industrial laboratories. It summarizes the benefits and limitations of each in promoting biosafety, and their individual contributions towards minimizing the global risk and consequences of laboratory accidents. Though the compilation of these arrangements, we have determined that there is an extensive array of existent governmental mechanisms related to biosafety. However, this work also exposed a major gap in international biosafety coverage related to the potential for high-consequence accidents: there remains a need for international norms for the biosafety and governance of those pathogens that have increased potential to spark a pandemic.This project was supported by the Naval Postgraduate School Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) Grant No. N00244-15-1-0028 to provide funding support for research entitled "Improving Security Through International Biosafety Norms.

Improving Security through International Biosafety Norms

Performer: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Center for Health and Security Project Lead: Gigi Gronvall Project Cost: $150,000 FY15-16Objective: The lack of national security norms and guidance governing research on highly transmissible pathogens (e.g., SARS and engineered influenza strains) poses a grave global security threat. Though norms exist at the research level, there is a lack of clear expectations and guidance at the national level for what constitutes biosafety norms. This project seeks to address the threat by providing the essential components for developing international biosafety norms.PASC

India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue on Biosecurity

Performer: University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (UPMC) Center for Health Security Project Lead: Gigi Gronvall Project Cost: $223,103 FY16–17This project will investigate biosecurity threats to India and the United States through two strategic dialogues in order to create enduring, productive bilateral relationships and a deeper understanding of each state’s biosecurity concerns and efforts to address them. The objective of this project is to initiate a sustainable, candid, and productive Track II dialogue between India and the U.S. on sensitive issues related to deliberate, accidental, and naturally occurring biological threats. By stimulating trust and habits of cooperation between dialogue participants, the project aims to reduce biosecurity threats and mitigate future crises that may emerge in the U.S. and India.PASC