One fallout from the conflict over the origin of the pandemic is less scientific collaboration and more mistrust between two global powers that must work together with other nations to head off or mitigate the next disaster.
“We are very vulnerable,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, a London-based charitable foundation that funds health-related research. “I don’t think there is nearly as much cooperation and partnership going on as there was in December 2019.”
The debate over the pandemic’s origin “doesn’t seem to have much to do with the larger issues, such as how are we going to prevent this from happening again and what are we going to do to research these viruses so we can more appropriately predict them,” said Dr. Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar and expert in biosecurity at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
The debate has also further strained other scientific connections between the U.S. and China, said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “There’s a palpable chill in the atmosphere at our public-health agencies,” he said.
