Virologists Defend Paper on COVID-19 Origins at Contentious House Hearing

Dr. Robert Garry, a professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, and Dr. Kristian Andersen Scripps Research listen during a hearing with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 11, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A 2020 paper studying the early origins of the COVID-19 outbreak was the focus of an often contentious July 11 House hearing investigating the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” the paper reads.