A team of scientists say it is “beyond reasonable doubt” the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.
They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.
The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.
Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.
The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.
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Their analysis was published last year and the raw data made available to other scientists. Now a team in the US and France says they have performed even more advanced genetic analyses to peer deeper into Covid’s early days.
Duh, it’s so simple. The lab released infected animals to the wet market. All bases covered.
I’ll take my research grant now.
(This is all said non-serious to be clear.)
I would love to see a picture of that ONE STALL that is thought to have been a hotbed. Whoever runs that stall must be quite a character, too. Golly it’s fun to visit markets in new countries.
Unless… a plausible alternative to my imagination is that it looks like any other open air fresh meat stall, just with more exotic flesh… And if that’s the case you can keep your photos.
But just in case. Anyone?
I mean you’ve seen people with COVID by now; did they look much different?
I’m not into conspiracy theories, but I find the confidence that is used in the defense of this origin just as Shakey as the lab leak theory.
The lab location and research done means there is a lot of potential incentive for the Chinese government, the lab and even researchers in the field to not have it be a lab leak… As this would potentially cause an entire (important) field of study and their methods be regulated into oblivion by poorly written knee jerk laws.
I’m fine with this as the accepted consensus on the subject, but I’ll keep my reservations for whatever good those do me.
So how’s the abolishing of wet markets going? And the reduction of antibiotics use in industrial scale farming?
The lab location and research done means there is a lot of potential incentive for the Chinese government, the lab and even researchers in the field to not have it be a lab leak…
They also have incentive for the origin not to be a live animal market that they very publicly had claimed to have already shut down.
It’s equally embarrassing either way, so the embarrassment proves nothing.
Equally embarrassing? Doubtful. One is a market which can be blamed on illegal activity even after being shut down and ‘little’ people arrested. One represents Chinas first foray into LVL 4 containment bio research and cost billions to build and government officials would have to be held accountable and foreign science assistance to that research program likely cuts off… I’m not pleading the case of a conspiracy theory here, but the lab’s proximity to the outbreak is incredibly suspect.
We’ll never hear the true story thanks to geopolitics.
Frankly, the lab leak theory IMO is the most plausible. There are wet markets all over China and have been for…ever? I get that nobody can really predict a zoonotic crossover event, but they were literally experimenting with highly infectious coronaviruses in Wuhan at the time of the initial outbreak.
There are wet markets all over China and have been for…ever?
Sure, and they all result in zoonotic illness.
People have been saying for decades before covid that the wet markets were a ticking time bomb. There has probably been viral outbreaks in the past, but the local population could have died off before it spread.
I think a lab leak of a natural virus is plausible, but irrelevant.
I think lax saftey when experimenting with highly infectious coronaviruses is very relevant.
Either improve the protocols or don’t experiment.
As someone currently down with covid I thought that was state of knowledge long time ago.
Conspiracy theorists have still been spreading the lab leak theory without proof for awhile now because China is the current scary boogeyman. I get that there was lab there studying these diseases, but guessing isn’t how science works, and the wet markets have been known to be a possible source of diseases for a long time now by scientists. I remember warnings about this scenario coming up awhile ago.
Lot of diseases come from China probably for similar reasons: it’s crowded and close contacts with lots of animals. No one thought the 1956 flu could be a lab leak, or SARS, or H7N9, etc. People just have conspiracy theories about this one because it turned into the biggest pandemic of them all, which is just the roll of the dice of all the diseases coming out of there.
People just have conspiracy theories about this one because it turned into the biggest pandemic of them all,
No, it’s because leaked gain of function research is a plausible scenario
which is just the roll of the dice of all the diseases coming out of there.
Maybe we should be more careful when manufacturing thousands of dice with sixes all over them.
Off topic, but “Genetic Ghosts” would be a sweet band name. I’d go see them.
