On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Richard Ebright, and Steven Quay delivered a presentation on the origins of Covid-19 at the Russell Senate Office Building to an audience of over 375 young professionals hosted by the Fund for American Studies. 

The Kentucky senator, who had just come from a Homeland Security Committee hearing on the same subject, has been on the front lines of figuring out the origins of Covid-19 for years, even publishing a book on the subject in October 2023.

Paul called on the scientific expertise of his fellow guests, the medical doctors Ebright and Quay, to illustrate how unlikely it is that Covid jumped naturally from animals to humans. According to Ebright, there is “no direct evidence” to prove this sort of “spillover,” unlike the SARS-COV-1 of the early 2000s, which was proven to be zoonotic.

Quay discussed the forensic evidence in greater detail. He said, “One of the clues is that all of these viruses have what you call a molecular clock. So, they copy themselves with quite high fidelity, but about every two weeks they make a mistake. So if a virus has been circulating for a year, it’s going to have about 26 [mistakes].” 

According to Dr. Quay, “The diversity of SARS-2? Zero.”