UK Covid Inquiry must investigate where the virus came from – even if it annoys China

This is my 200th column for the Scotsman, published in today's newspaper (31st March 2026).

The elephant in the room remains the fraught question about the source of the killer Covid virus.

No one who’s read Baroness Heather Hallett’s CV could have doubted she would be fastidious in her chairing of the UK Covid Inquiry. A former Appeal Court judge, she led the comprehensive inquiry into the 7/7 terrorist bombing.

Her remit was straightforward: “To examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to learn lessons for the future.”

The importance of this inquiry is beyond doubt. Lest we forget, 227,000 people in the UK and seven million worldwide have died of Covid so far. And beneath that appalling death toll lies a vast catalogue of harm that will reverberate through the generations.

Then there’s the economic cost. It will take years to pay off the money borrowed to fund the furlough scheme. It’s easy now for critics to cast doubt on the decisions that led to this vast debt.

As I recall, it seemed like a good idea at the time when our leaders were faced with stark choices, confronting a public health catastrophe. As such, we should judge them gently.

Four years into her inquiry, Baroness Hallett has been as good as her word. She told us her work would be long and expensive, and so it has proved. With the publication of three of the ten modules, the process will rumble on until next year.

While some findings fall squarely into the category of ‘statements of the bleeding obvious’, it is hugely important that we finish the job and hopefully embed institutional learning for the next time.

But there is a fundamental question we cannot avoid if we are to really learn the lessons that Baroness Hallett’s remit demands.

The elephant in the room is fraught with diplomatic sensitivity but needs confronted. What was the source of the killer virus in the first place?

We know a lot about Covid. It emerged in Wuhan, a Chinese city of 14 million inhabitants. But after this, the facts get a bit hazier. The theory most commonly advanced is that a coronavirus mutated from an animal host and jumped to humans in the insanitary environment of an old live meat market, where numerous species, including birds and bats are sold live for food.

The species-jump theory is appealing to the Chinese authorities as an aberration of nature, for which they are blameless. But there is another suspect worthy of scrutiny. An experimental laboratory also in the city of Wuhan specialises in research in surprise surprise, coronaviruses.

Call me a cynical old detective if you will, but the chances of there being a research laboratory specialising in coronaviruses so close to an outbreak of a new strain, and these two facts being unconnected, are so small that this stretches credibility beyond its limit.

But of course such a conclusion is awkward, as it implies criticism, even blame, for the People’s Republic of China. This may be diplomatically difficult, but we cannot skirt around the question.

For if we cannot truly identify the source of this killer virus, we will never discover the remedy either. To complete its remit, the inquiry we must get to the bottom of this question and also tackle the World Health Organisation’s role in safeguarding our wellbeing.

Over to you Baroness Hallett and the WHO.