A special edition on our coronavirus coverage

The arguments over where covid-19 came from started almost as soon as the first samples of SARS-CoV-2 were discovered. Was it a spillover event at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan? Or was the pandemic seeded by a leak of virus from a scientific laboratory in China? Tribes have dug in on both sides. This week, in the Science section, we report on new research that seems to tilt the evidence firmly in the direction of the wet markets—the explanation the majority of scientists have favoured all along. But will it persuade the lab-leak crowd to change their minds? Covid has brought about many social changes that look likely to endure, including the “Great Resignation”, in which millions around the world have quit their jobs. There has also been a boom in e-commerce, leaving warehouses and many other businesses struggling to recruit workers. These gaps will be increasingly filled by robots. In a Leader, we welcome the future rise in automation, arguing that fears of mass human unemployment are overblown. Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-In-Chief The economist