A simpler explanation is that Trump just surrounded himself with sycophants and incompetents who just said the things he wanted to hear. Even if those things were not supported by any credible evidence.
Where is the credible evidence that it came from wildlife? Bats are not known to live around the city of Wuhan, and the closest wild relative to SARS-CoV-2 was found hundreds of kilometers away, near China's southern border. And also in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which performed gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.
The core argument in favor of crossover from wildlife is that scientists don't think many of the mutations in the virus's genome make sense as engineered changes. That is a straigh
Unsurprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Where is the credible evidence that it came from wildlife? Bats are not known to live around the city of Wuhan, and the closest wild relative to SARS-CoV-2 was found hundreds of kilometers away, near China's southern border. And also in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which performed gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.
The core argument in favor of crossover from wildlife is that scientists don't think many of the mutations in the virus's genome make sense as engineered changes. That is a straigh
Re:Unsurprising (Score:5, Informative)
They aren't?
Here's a study about Leptospira in bats from Hubei province [nih.gov].
Here's another study [asm.org] from 14 years ago about SARS in bats, including bats from Hubei.
Here's the range of the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat [wikipedia.org], note it includes Hubei province.
Re: (Score:2)
Bats DO live around Wuhan. Not the Giant Horseshoe Bat that harbors similar viruses. You know, there are different species of bat.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the bat population with the most closely related virus was something like a thousand miles away?
That's consistent with either animal transmission or a lab mishap.