When the first cases of human infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome corona-virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were reported from Wuhan, China, in December 2019, there was quick agreement across scientific and health communities that understanding the facts about its emergence would help prevent future outbreaks. Never could I have imagined the degree of politicization that would cloud this quest. Over the past 39 months, while reported deaths from COVID-19 increased to nearly 7 million worldwide, science on the virus's origins has gotten smaller while the politics surrounding this question has grown ever bigger. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) learned that scientists in China possessed data on viral samples from Wuhan that had been gathered in January 2020, which should have been shared immediately- not 3 years later-with the global research community. The lack of data disclosure is simply inexcusable. The longer it takes to understand the origins of the pandemic, the harder it becomes to answer the question, and the more unsafe the world becomes.
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