There's a lot of other evidence pointing to a natural origin as well. Plus statistically the odds are much much much higher it was a natural origin. It's always been thought to be have been a natural origin, it's just how conclusive the evidence has been in ruling out the lab leak theory.
Yes. I've never understood how saying that it came from the market was excusing or defending the PRC. It's very damning that in 2019 they still have markets that are not only unsanitary but keep endangered species under barbaric conditions.
Why though? Who is Alina Chan? That NPR coverage quoted many virologists not involved in the new studies, said the case is not closed, and mentioned peer review is still to come. Pretty slow and balanced, while admitting the data really do point more to bio-origin. If they've genetically found two timepoints for species cross-over, that's super interesting and would possibly rule out "accidental lab leak," one of my dark horse favorites in all this.
Per he Twitter page, she's the Scientific Advisor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. In that thread I linked she discussed the issues with that data set. I thought it was relevant.
ok, thx! Broad Inst. is legit and I'll check it out. EDIT: She's a postdoc, so temporary and in training, FWIW. But that doesn't mean she can't have good takes.
market practices absolutely needs to be cracked down on and the population needs to be educated However, if u can’t contain something in your lab that’s capable of killing millions and shutting down the entire world, what are u gonna leak next? I doubt we’ll ever know the truth
Breaking: Virologists working in virology labs in urban centers announce new study suggesting virus unlikely to leak from virology labs in urban centers. More at 11.
Exactly. If it's a lab they can blame the lab and since there are foreign workers from all over the world they can blame those organizations and the US as well. But if it's from the markets it's totally on the CCP/PRC because they have been advised many times from scientists to clean up the markets and end these practices because they were dangerous. This is the second time now (SARS being the first) These wildlife markets have to go. As bad as COVID was, we're playing with fire because something worse is going to come out. International community must insist that China make real changes to the wildlife trade and markets to prevent the outbreak of future pandemics.
Yes the wildlife trade has been a huge problem for a long time. This should've been taken care of after SARS. Also the endangered species trade for both food and out of backwards beliefs long needs to be stopped. It's ridiculous that people are thinking that things like pangolin scales can cure cancer and eating rhinoceros horn can make you more virile.
Can anyone shed light on what the CCP is doing to shed light on Covid origins...are they actively helping these researchers or are the researchers taking the long windy route around assistance and piecing together a 1,000,000 piece jigsaw puzzle without the corner pieces? I'm assuming the latter, but I distrust and have no faith they'd accelerate the former (we're not locking you up...thats good enough!!).
yip fwiw, there are wildlife markets in HK, Taiwan, Singapore, VietNam; to a lesser extent in Korea and other Asian countries. but no pandemic started outside China apply pressure on China to adopt sanitation practices (on wildlife markets) from its neighbors such as HK, Taiwan, Singapore, VietNAm, etx.
My understanding is that the PRC is not completely uncooperative but is not being very forthcoming. When it first broke out they did cover up a lot of things and one of the problems with the Wuhan Market is that they killed a lot of the animals and cleaned it out before a thorough investigation could be done. Also while PRC scientists have been willing to share information such as early on releasing the genome sequence they've been more evasive about many other things. In some cases individual scientists have gone around PRC authorities to get information out. Also when many including Trump started directly blaming the PRC for "creating" or "engineering" the virus they started cooperating a whole lot less.
Is it just a sanitation issue or are the wildlife markets in HK, Taiwan, etc playing with fire as well?
Just reminder that it took 14 years to find origin of Sars1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS#Origin_and_animal_vectors It took 14 years to find the original bat population likely responsible for the SARS pandemic.[65] In December 2017, "after years of searching across China, where the disease first emerged, researchers reported ... that they had found a remote cave in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan province, which is home to horseshoe bats that carry a strain of a particular virus known as a coronavirus. This strain has all the genetic building blocks of the type that triggered the global outbreak of SARS in 2002."[3] The research was performed by Shi Zhengli, Cui Jie, and co-workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China, and published in PLOS Pathogens. The authors are quoted as stating that "another deadly outbreak of SARS could emerge at any time. The cave where they discovered their strain is only a kilometre from the nearest village."[3][66] The virus was ephemeral and seasonal in bats.[67]
There aren’t legal wildlife markets in Singapore but the Singapore wet markets are very safe. I would trust them more than many US grocery stores. HK and Taiwan still have problems with wildlife trade but both countries have done a lot to clean up their markets. Especially after SARS. The PRC is still lagging very far behind those places
I don't have an issue with wet markets - it's the wildlife markets where you have animals that have much higher exposure to bats and other flyers that are known to harbor many viruses. I mean you still have to keep and slaughter animals like chickens hygienically and safely, but I'm more concerned about wild animals that are move, traded, and sold at markets. Glad Singapore doesn't have wildlife markets.
