Exactly, and that's why a proper international unbias investigation is so important. In the long run if it's "just" 1, it's still important to tell the story of how we got here, and how we are endangering our own existence as a species by not limiting our consumption of the natural world. If it's 2, then we can have a basis for a multi-national oversight of health and safety protocols. It also shows the importance of the US, and our allies having real stake in groups like the UN and WHO so China cannot utilize those groups as a propaganda outlet. It shows the real importance of rejecting Nationalism that the Trump's and the Steve Bannon's on the right promote. There are still dire consequences by the US and our allies not being engaged in global agency even in science, and medicine.
thought they called wet markets wet cause they are lots of live animals that can be slaughtered to order.
Now that the politicization of the possibility of COVID coming from a lab is removed (Trump suggested it back in March/April, so made it a no no topic for scientists), there is a growing number of real and respected scientists that are beginning to think its not so far fetched. This article takes a pretty well rounded approach to the possibility, and the fact that humans are creating these super viruses in labs around the world in efforts to "prevent" them...which may be the way they get started in the first place. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
The accidental release of an engineered virus is a possibility. Scientist engineer viruses and do gain-of-function research. There are two level 4 bio-safety labs in China one of which is in Wuhan. The lab was studying bat corona viruses. Covid-19 did not come from the Wuhan wet market. Covid-19 was both able to jump to humans and be extremely infectious - which is extremely rare. Usually a virus has to mutate to become more infectious after making the jump.
First, Trump said he had evidence that it came from a lab in China. The vast majority of responses were that there was no evidence that it started in a lab. Indeed, that is what the intelligence committee said when they were in the process of investigating the issue. There is a HUGE difference in the science community between just throwing out there "It started in a lab" and we don't have any evidence that it started in a lab.
The article makes the point that legitimate scientist suspected it may have come from a lab, but were basically told to not talk about the possibility due to Trump making those claims.
That's where they are slaughtered. But wet markets aren't unique to China. There are a lot of countries with active wet markets. China's issue is the combination of wet markets AND wildlife farming. In China, its common to raise all kinds of animals like bears, monkeys, etc.. These animals are literally farm raised and then sold. Some of them end up being sold in wet markets. The problem is that the wet markets then create an environment where wildlife species that would never interact come into close contact with each other. Blood, urine, etc.. from these animals end up in the bodies of other animals and this sort of cross species contamination doesn't happen in the wild. It can only happen in a unique environment like a wet market. Now whether Covid-19 actually originated from a wet market is a separate discussion. We don't have any firm proof but we do know that the combination of wildlife farming and wet markets has resulted in the introduction of new viruses to humans in the past. The SARS outbreak is believed to have started in a wet market.
Again, suspecting something and having no proof is vastly different than the President coming out and saying that it came from a lab. When it comes to the scientific community, the standards are very high. The possibility was already known and was being actively investigated. Had the President come out and said "We are investigating whether the virus came from accidental contamination in a lab or from a wet market, but at this time we don't have any evidence"........ there would be ZERO issues with what he said..... because that is what his only intelligence community said.
You’re both correct. Trump created conceptual no-fly zones with his careless rhetoric and its awful impact. By blaming China he was further encouraging some nasty behavior toward Asian Americans in this case. But the lab hypothesis has had minor legs for a while. I’ll have to read that NY mag article, if it did escape a level 4 facility, the Chinese would never admit it, and from what virologists tell me, this one doesn’t have a clear smoking gun artificial fingerprint, so we may really never fully know.
I've said before but a well regulated wet market, including what type of animals are there, isn't anymore dangerous than a supermarket. I'll say it again but I would trust the food safety at a Singaporean wet market over Kroger.
We have genome evidences of Sars-cov-2 making multiple minor and major changes (mutations) within 1 person (active infection for months due to his weak immune system) in the US. The result was published back in Aug'20 I think. More recently, study of another immunocompromised patient in Canada undergoing plasma treatment also saw multiple minor changes followed by major changes (and subsequently, a report cautioning the use of plasma treatment). They evolved to avoid antibodies and to "stick" more easily (meaning, more infectious). Basically, we have actual evidence of many small and large mutation within a person and over the course of the past year within the human population. The evidences suggest Sars virus actually mutate very quickly and easily in human.
The WHO team investigating the origin gave the 1st live press conf with Q/A today. I listened in to some of it. I didn't hear any breakthrough. They are working on 4 possible hypotheses. Zoonotic spillover (animal > human). Intermediary host species (reservoir of virus > animal closer to human > human), Food (animal > surface transmission > human), Lab incident. Extremely unlikely to be a lab release (reasons cited seem weak in that it's the same reasons given before so I doubt it will dispose of this theory). Of the theories, most likely to be intermediary host species. Did not identified animal reservoir (same possibilities as before - bat, pangolins, minks). Unlikely the animal reservoir was in Wuhan. Virus was circulating around the Huanan market. No large outbreaks of covid19 detected outside. Don't know how it was introduced to the market. Could be a trader, an animal, frozen food (this has been pushed by the Chinese for a couple of months I think). Wuhan market primary deal with frozen animal product but also had domesticated wildlife. No evidence of covid19 in Wuhan prior to late Nov / early Dec'19.
Whether we find anything conclusive I think we can say that the wild animal food trade is a bad idea and needs to end. Also this shows the importance of preserving habitats as the loss of habitat is driving wild animals into more contact with humans and domesticated animals. It's a matter of time until there is another outbreak from a zoonotic source being a wild animal transmitting it either directly to humans or through a domesticated animal.
I don't think the bats are live in the wet markets but other animals are. I'm not sure to be honest but there are both live animals and dead ones - so it's definitely a risk. But the far bigger risk is the wildlife trade. In and out of China. Wild animals are disease vectors all over the world. There is some speculation that COVID actually came from Africa as animals were being sourced for Chinese medicine - so the animal is captured is Africa and then transported to China. That's a huge opportunity for viruses to make the jump from animal to human or other animals. To keep the world safe from future outbreaks, the global wildlife trade needs to be banned or heavily regulated. Obviously China is the biggest culprit in all of this, but many other nations, including the US, have issues here.
Out of the super long NYMAG article and comments section came this nugget, which I’m surprised didn’t get more coverage. I think Tony Fauci owes the public some answers. https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-b...us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741 And for those still following this sordid tale, Daszak is a member of the WHO investigative team currently in Wuhan and is or will be announcing the team’s findings today or tomorrow. I await with bated breath for the non-event.
The far bigger risk is BSL-4s all over the world tripping over themselves trying to create the baddest virus in history to prove that evolution is a bigger existential threat than mad scientists playing God.
Ask EcoHealth The NIH grant to EcoHealth Alliance In 2014, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the part of the NIH headed by Fauci, awarded a $3.4 million grant to the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which aims to protect people from viruses that jump from species to species. The alliance has projects across 30 countries, including Thailand, Vietnam and China. The group hired the virology lab in Wuhan to conduct genetic analyses of bat coronaviruses collected in Yunnan province, about 800 miles southwest of Wuhan. EcoHealth Alliance paid the lab $598,500 over five years. The lab had secured approval from both the U.S. State Department and the NIH. That the NIAID funded the project is not in question. However, the WorldNetDaily article goes further than that, claiming that the grant covered "gain of function" research on a bat coronavirus, which "created" SARS-CoV-2. Gain-of-function research is a controversial form of study that involves boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen. Proponents of gain-of-function say it helps researchers spot potential threats to human health and allows them to figure out ways to tackle a new virus. Fauci has advocated for gain-of-function research in the past. In a 2011 article he co-wrote for the Washington Post, he promoted it as a means to study influenza viruses. However, there’s no hard proof to support the article’s claims about gain-of-function research. The overwhelming consensus among public health experts is that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 evolved naturally. All parties involved in the grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology have denied that it involved gain-of-function research. "We have not ever participated in gain-of-function research. Nor have we ever been funded to participate in gain-of-function research," Robert Kessler with the EcoHealth Alliance told PolitiFact last May.
