Criticizing the Pandemic

It has now been a year and a half since we started living with – and too often dying from – COVID-19. Although the pandemic is by no means over, it is not too soon to take a step back and draw some preliminary conclusions from the experience.

One conclusion that has turned out to be especially tentative concerns the source of the pandemic. Initially, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 was widely believed to have spread from a wet market in Wuhan, China, after it jumped from an animal (probably a bat) to humans through an intermediary host.