If there is one lesson we should learn from the Covid-19 pandemic , it is humility. The novel coronavirus has brought unprecedented challenges, and ending the pandemic remains a distant goal. Global society has urgently called for collective leadership. To our dismay, many world leaders have not displayed humility to acknowledge the forces of nature, resulting in a misguided approach to tackling the crisis. A case in point is the vigorous debate on the origins of Covid-19. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization completed an international field mission to China. While the world was still digesting the findings from Phase 1 of the origin-tracing study , US President Joe Biden ordered a 90-day assessment in May to be carried out by the American intelligence community. Results of the assessment are expected by end of August. Foreign Affairs magazine wrote this month that “they are unlikely to produce a definitive answer” and “few outside the United States will accept its conclusion” because there is no independent corroboration. It is clear that the nature of an intelligence investigation is fundamentally different from that of a scientific investigation. WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, by contrast, said the investigation in China had dual goals – to help find better interventions for the world to counter the ongoing pandemic, and to prevent similar pandemics from occurring in the future. Not only is there a real risk of a lack of independence in the US intelligence community’s investigation, but the tight time frame of 90 days could also lead to shaky conclusions. Tracing the origins of a virus is a highly complex task, requiring substantial time, resources and expertise. The Wall Street Journal reported that scientists have spent decades trying to find definitive proof of the source of diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. The story might be similar for Covid-19. In a broader context, Washington’s stance on investigating Covid-19’s origins could be seen as part of what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described as “engaging China from a position of strength ”. It implies the US is working on all fronts possible to gain an advantage over China. This could be of significant value to the Democratic Party in terms of securing voter support in the 2022 midterm elections. So, instead of reversing the anti-science and populist sentiments that have proliferated across the US since the presidency of Donald Trump, the Democrats could use these as a tool and allow them to spread. The US government has also reinforced the “blame and shame” culture in the international arena, showing reluctance to build constructive relationships with countries that are committed to putting the world on the right track. All this comes at the expense of the health and safety of US citizens. It is shocking to see that reported cases and deaths in the US have consistently been among the highest in the world, despite its advanced health care system. The journal Scientific American ran a long list of what had gone wrong in the US one year after the Covid-19 outbreak. Most shortcomings were the fault of the government, such as downplaying the danger, sidelining experts, confusing mask guidance and decentralised responses in the states. Perhaps the clearest US success has been the development of vaccines in record time, but it has also maintained millions of surplus doses. This has received criticism from groups including Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has estimated that low- and middle-income countries would not receive adequate supplies of vaccines until at least 2023. Vaccine development is a showcase of global teamwork. As early as January 2020, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre posted the gene sequence of the newly discovered virus on an open-access site. This spurred the essential analyses and subsequent development of vaccines by scientists across the globe. So far, the US has only exported a fraction of its vaccine production, around 110 million doses. China has shared more than 700 million doses to more than 90 countries, with a focus on less-developed nations. In response to the prevalence of Delta variant, the Chinese government raised its pledge to deliver 2 billion doses in 2021. The 90-day investigation by the US intelligence community has a slim chance of producing anything meaningful. Worse, it could further distract from the WHO’s course of study and hinder progress in pandemic control and prevention. The US would be wise to decouple public health and geopolitics . It should re-engage and build on the work the WHO has started and protect its citizens by learning from its pandemic failures. Tedros has said that “no single research trip can provide all the answers” and more research is required. The WHO report is a beginning, not the end. All countries should continue shaping the conversation and prepare for the next phase of study. Humility can help foster a culture of openness, trust and collaboration. It can inspire leaders to make better decisions and focus on improving things in the future, rather than being stuck in a past we cannot change. Gary Wong Chi-him is a board member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies