{"id":11544,"date":"2026-02-25T18:14:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11544"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:14:08","slug":"covids-origins-what-we-do-and-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/02\/25\/covids-origins-what-we-do-and-dont-know\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID\u2019s origins: what we do and don\u2019t know"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-00530-y\">Nature<\/a> <strong>Researchers summarize key insights from the world\u2019s first comprehensive investigation into how a pandemic started.<\/strong> We are 23 of the 27 original members of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) for the World Health Organization (WHO). After nearly 3.5 years of deliberations, we concluded our independent assessment of the origin of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and provided our report<sup><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-00530-y#ref-CR1\">1<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0in June 2025 to the WHO director-general. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 78-page document, we determined that most of the peer-reviewed scientific evidence supports the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 has a zoonotic origin, meaning that it came from an animal. But until requests for additional information are met or more data become available, there can be no certainty about when, where and how SARS-CoV-2 entered the human population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the term of the first SAGO group ended in October last year, meaning we are no longer members, the WHO has proposed a second term for SAGO and issued a call for new participants. Our 2025 report<sup><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-00530-y#ref-CR1\">1<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;provides recommendations for subsequent investigations seeking to establish the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, with the politicization and speculation around the origin of the pandemic showing no signs of abating, 23 of us mark the close of SAGO\u2019s first chapter by clarifying our position on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the science behind it in a more accessible way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-00530-y\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature Researchers summarize key insights from the world\u2019s first comprehensive investigation into how a pandemic started. We are 23 of the 27 original members of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) for the World Health Organization (WHO). After nearly 3.5 years of deliberations, we concluded our independent assessment of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11545,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11544\/revisions\/11545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}