Was COVID released from a Wuhan lab?

The origins of COVID-19 have been hotly debated ever since the disease began its spread three years ago, killing millions of people worldwide and 100,000 people here in California alone.

Did the virus begin spreading from live animals in an open-air food market in Wuhan, China? Or was it not at all coincidental that the city is also home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses?

If the latter was the place from which COVID spread, was the viral release accidental, or on purpose?

The Wall Street Journal reports our Energy Department has concluded that an accidental laboratory leak in Wuhan most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic.

Well, that's certainly a relief, for those who like to get to the bottom of things.

Troubling, though, for those who like their information to be sourced with certainty, American officials who have seen the intelligence reports say that the Energy Department's conclusion was made with “low confidence.”

In other words, they're really not sure about this.

Do you think the novel coronavirus that killed and sickened so many people, and continues to, came from the Wuhan lab, and that it was released from there accidentally?

That's our Question of the Week for our readers.

Ever since it first began to spread in 2020, some have theorized that the viral release was done on purpose. If that's the case, why? Especially in a nation where the government controls all research, why cause a pandemic among your own people? And the economic consequences for China have been extreme.

Or, if it was on purpose, could the release have been the work of one rogue actor — a mad scientist, as it were — with bad intent?

Four other U.S. intelligence agencies still believe that the virus came from a “natural transmission” originating in the Wuhan market or others nearby. But their belief was also made with “low confidence.”

In the end, if the release was accidental, does it matter whence it came?

Email your thoughts to opinion@scng.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number (it will not be published).