A practical treatment for COVID-19 and the next pandemic

Scientists are concerned about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, which has caused a devastating global pandemic. In a letter recently published in Science, 18 investigators called for more studies of its origins.1 In 2001 and in a different context, Malcom Gladwell wrote “it is a strange kind of public health policy that concerns itself more with the provenance of illness than with its consequences …”.2 Studies on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are unlikely to be undertaken, primarily for political reasons. As a result, investigators can only speculate on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants: delta and more recently omicron.3, 4.