Will we ever know Covid-19’s origin story?

Even three years after it emerged, there’s still no consensus on the origin of the virus that shut down the world. Last week, the US Department of Energy said that its conclusion (albeit with “low confidence”) was that the virus escaped from a lab. Three days later new genetic research pointed to the presence of the virus in racoon dogs found in Wuhan at the time the virus began to spread.

Umair Irfan, correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, Covid-19, and energy policy. He joins us to discuss the lab leak and natural origin theories, and how partisan politics is influencing the debate.

“I think a lot of people have aligned with one view or the other, based on their priors, based on their political alignments, and it’s really going to be hard to change people’s minds one way or the other,” he said.

So will we ever get clarity on where the virus truly came from? And if we did, would it change anything?

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.