The Wuhan lab has drawn global scrutiny because of its research on bat coronaviruses in the city where the pandemic began. The events have shined a light on a research niche that – in China, the United States and elsewhere – operates with heightened secrecy because of the national security risks of handling deadly pathogens. The secrecy may help to explain why efforts to confirm or disprove the lab-leak theory of the pandemic’s origins have made little progress. Do you think that Covid-19 was manufactured in labs?

