From the New York Times, I'm Serena Tevernici, and this is the Daily.

Three years after the start of COVID, the central mystery of the pandemic, how exactly it began, remains unsolved.

But recently, the debate about the origins of the virus has re-emerged, this time in Congress.

Today, my colleague Benjamin Mueller on what we actually know about how COVID started, and why the politics are making it harder to find answers.

It's Wednesday, March 15th.

So Ben, in Washington last week, there was a hearing on the question of where and how COVID actually began.

And it really felt like deja vu, right? Like, here we are again, three years later, listening to a debate about whether COVID leaked from a lab or crossed over from a sick animal in a market.

How are we all of a sudden having this conversation again?

Well, Republicans took control of the House recently, and they've made it a priority to investigate the origins of the virus.

They see themselves as having unfinished business, which is to look much more closely at how the virus began, and specifically at a theory that's popular on the Republican side of the aisle, which is that the virus may have accidentally leaked from a lab.

I think they have grievances with the way Democrats have handled many parts of the pandemic response, and that includes the idea that Democrats have unfairly overlooked this theory about how the virus started, the possibility that it came from a lab.

Good morning, everyone. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will come to order.

So they set up a committee to look at just that question, and they had their first hearing last week.

And at it, they used the hearing to go after one of their most favorite political targets, Tony Fauci, a public health official who led parts of the coronavirus response.

We released a memo highlighting new evidence that suggests that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of a publication that would disprove the lab leak theory.

They blame Fauci in particular for steering scientists away from the lab leak theory in early 2020, and they furnished emails and other records that they say proves their case against him.

This was a narrative that was decided that they were going to say this came from the wet market, and they were going to do everything they could to support it to negate any discussion about the possibility that this came from a lab leak.

But it's not only Republicans who have taken interest in this question, Democrats have become much more careful lately about saying that we need to investigate the possibility that the virus came from a lab leak.

It is my sincere hope that we can conduct this work in an objective bipartisan way based on evidence to save lives.

If there is no further business without objection, this Lex subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you.

But then my memory of the lab leak theory is that it was something that Trump had really pushed, and it kind of got caught up in his rhetoric, right?

Like his insistence on calling it the China virus, like the pandemic was somehow China's fault, but that it was also largely dismissed by scientists.

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