Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19

By Alina Chan and Matt Ridley

Understanding how Covid-19 started is more important than we know for the future of humankind. 

Determining whether the virus came from nature or from a lab will help us to safeguard against the next pandemic.

This disease will forever punctuate modern history. It has led to the deaths of millions, sickened hundreds of millions and affected the lives of almost every person on the planet. We now know that Covid is here to stay.

Genetic engineering expert Dr Alina Chan and renowned science writer Matt Ridley examine the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, using their formidable skills to scrutinise arguments and rigorously analyse the sprawling data. Viral is a fascinating account that takes in pangolins, horseshoe bats, internet sleuths and misleading scientific papers. It details the evidence and investigates hypotheses for the virus origin, chief among them a potential laboratory leak or a natural spillover.

Science has made great strides over the last decades. Chan and Ridley give an insight into the proliferating pathogen research and virus hunting around the world. Whatever the source of the virus, the world needs to adopt new policies and strategies to prevent or mitigate future outbreaks.

Set in the caves and mineshafts, food markets and wildlife smugglers’ stores, laboratories and databases of China and elsewhere, Viral is a page-turner that reads like a detective novel and goes deeper into the deepest mystery of the day than any other work.

This is the book on the search for the origin of Covid-19.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780008487515

Alina Chan

Dr. Alina Chan is a postdoctoral researcher with a background in medical genetics, synthetic biology, and vector engineering. At the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, Dr. Chan is currently creating next generation vectors for human gene therapy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chan began to investigate problems relevant to finding the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and in parallel spearheaded the development of the COVID-19 CoV Genetics (covidcg.org) browser for scientists worldwide to rapidly track virus lineages and mutations by locations and date ranges of interest. Follow Dr. Alina Chan on Twitter at @Ayjchan

Reviews for Viral

[markm2315 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent in-depth, step-by-step discussion of all of the data (that they found) with two penultimate chapters written as if an attorney were presenting a case for either choice - wayward bat vs lab leak.

[brewbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Matt Ridley and Alina Chan address the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Their leading theory is the virus originated in a lab. They do provide a reasonable steelman argument for the virus emerging from nature. The book is a science-based detective story; the authors and a community of people found some tantalizing clues pointing to the virus's origin. The last three chapters are easier to read and digest. The book concludes they have yet to find the source of COVID-19 as of 2022, but some people likely know the answer. The authors ask those who know more to come forward to the world with information.